Answers for Today, October 3, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
Illogical Praise
The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Acts 16:22-31
Welcome to Philippi! What happened to the pleading Macedonian who wanted Paul to “Come over and help us”?! It’s a good thing this game plan came directly from the Holy Spirit, because had it come from denominational headquarters, somebody would have gotten fired over it. The missionary team had skipped over territory right in front of them, in order to sail to Europe, shortly to encounter this ignoble welcome. Their crime? Delivering a slave girl from some sort of evil spirit! (Her masters had been using her fortune-telling abilities to generate income; they didn’t appreciate Paul turning her back into an ordinary slave girl).
Things quickly went from low-key evangelism along the river bank to a high-profile mini-riot, complete with being stripped, beaten with rods and thrown into jail, with the added discomfort and indignity of their feet being placed in the stocks. So this is where helping people in Jesus’ name gets you!
The apostles had plenty of reasons to moan, to be angry and bitter, but they’re stronger men than that. What they do is the exact opposite of what logic or their bodies must have told them to do: they sang praises to God. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. It won’t be long, now!...
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: The less likely the circumstances, the more powerful the praise.
Answers for Today, October 4, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
Reverse Jailbreak
Acts 16 features a reverse jailbreak. Instead of breaking out of jail, God breaks in! Why? He’s orchestrating a strategic conversion by placing two tough apostles face to face with a hardened, needy jailer. The jailer doesn’t get out much. He’s not the kind of person a couple missionaries would run into, down by the river. Nor at “church.” If God wants Paul and Silas to witness to the Philippian jailer, He first needs to get them to go to Philippi; hence, the vision. Now He needs a jailbreak. He needs to get His boys into that jail! If they just show up, doing “jail ministry” or something, it will have no effect on the jailer and probably little on the prisoners; they need to go in as prisoners. That’s easy—have them deliver that slave girl from her personal demon, and the owners will throw a fit.
God’s plan is working, perfectly. He’s getting the missionaries into position. The jailer places Paul and Silas in the stocks after they have been publicly (and illegally) beaten and humiliated for a miraculous good deed. Stripped of dignity and rights, confined, bleeding, miserably immobile in the darkest part of a foreign jail, what will the missionaries do? It’s the absolute last thing anyone but God would expect them to do: pray and sing praises to God. First, God breaks into the jail with His men, then He has them put on a concert! The whole jail is listening. (Where are they going to go)? So this is what they mean by a “captive audience”!
It’s all set up: people who have been cruelly mistreated, in wretched circumstances, responding by singing hymns of praise, talking to God like He’s their best Friend; needy people listening to the Gospel through a message of prayer and music, and most of all, heart. God’s guys have done their part perfectly—you couldn’t get a better witness to the overcoming power of faith than this! Alright! It’s time. For what? For God to show His own strength and power, by doing something beyond the powers of man: shaking the stinking jail so hard with an earthquake that everyone’s chains rattle to the floor. They’re free! Do they flee? The jailer assumed they had, calculated his life-span if even one of his captives had crawled away in the dark, and decided to end his life before his superiors got to it. Paul doesn’t blow his chance, though. This is not about getting away, but about giving the Gospel away. He yells, “Don’t do it! We’re all here!”
An astonished jailer calls for a light, sees his freed prisoners standing around waiting to be re-shackled, and without hesitation, kneels at the feet of Paul the missionary prisoner and asks, “What must I do to be saved?”
Mission accomplished. Nice one.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Could God entrust to me a mission like this?
Answers for Today, October 5, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
What It Takes
What Paul and Silas did is what it takes to get to the hard ones. A soft sermon from a nice pulpit can be funny, touching and right on target, but the jailer doesn’t hear it because he’s not there, nor planning to be, anytime soon. The jail ministry team from the church troops through when they remember to show up, and the jailer humors them, but no deep impression is made, because this whole thing didn’t cost anybody too much. But something like this... there’s no explanation. How can they praise their God like nothing happened to them, when they’re bruised and bloody? The earthquake. That wasn’t coincidence, and he knows it. The fact that God would send two messengers to sing the Gospel to him, that they wouldn’t escape when they had the chance, that they would stop their tormentor and captor from taking his own life, because,... Why? It was all too much for the Philippian jailer. He surrendered to Jesus on the spot.
This is the kind of dedication it takes to win people to Christ in the hard places. The power of the witness is proportionate to the suffering endured to give it. Anyone can drop a tract on the floor, and for some, that’s all it takes. But for the hard ones, the witness that brings them to their knees is the power of God, displayed through ordinary people, reacting in ways beyond the ability of ordinary people. That one takes extraordinary courage and commitment. Would that be one of the reasons we have seen evangelism in the Church in America driddle to nearly nothing? Considering how livid I have found myself even in the past few days, prompted by nothing more than perceived incompetence or injustice adversely affecting me or mine, I wonder what my chances would be of reacting with praise and grace if I were in a situation remotely similar to Paul and Silas. I wouldn’t bet on me. They did have the advantage of knowing it was because of Jesus that they were suffering, rather than just having a bad day at the auto shop or the billing office.... I still wouldn’t bet on me.
If I knew it was because of Jesus, and I had time to think it through and pray it through, plus I got to do it with a friend.... maybe. But those times when it’s just the routine bumps of life, which slime up the plans and prime the anger pump... I’m afraid those things don’t turn into praise to God very often in my life. The sad bottom line, for me, is this: What does? What does it take before I praise God, publicly?
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: The power of the witness is related to its cost.
Answers for Today, October 6, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
The Disciple’s Union
Why doesn’t Twenty-first Century evangelism in the U.S. look like First Century evangelism in the Roman Empire? Has the Holy Spirit lost His touch? No, I think it has more to do with the unionization of the disciples. We’ve banded together and talked ourselves into the mentality that we have a bill of rights as Christians, including getting to live in a “Christian nation” where we not only don’t get beat up for practicing our faith; we get a tax break. Some of our other “rights” include the right to free speech, which we often interpret as not having to say anything about Jesus if we don’t want to, or if it might offend someone or damage our popularity.
Because we are citizens of a nation founded on biblical principles, named or not, we have come to expect that we will be shown respect for our beliefs. Until recent generations, that was the practice. Now that public sentiment has shifted, our reaction is often more of an eagerness to regain our rights than our witness. Thus, if God allowed a couple of us to be shoved in jail on trumped up charges, rather than responding in praise to Him so we could witness to the jail population, our response would more probably be to call our attorney, post bail and start on the lawsuit. We’d probably go free. And probably no one would get saved, either.
Paul and Silas did the things which landed them in jail, didn’t escape when they had the perfect opportunity (I would probably have been thinking, “Answer to prayer!” when the earthquake released my chains, and gotten out of there), and even when they were emancipated the next morning, they wouldn’t go! Why? Because of their own rights? After all, their rights as Roman citizens had been grossly violated. No, it was the reputation of Christ about which Paul was concerned. He wanted to make sure no one thought Christians were criminals or seditionists, so he waited to be publicly escorted from prison by the apologetic authorities. All of this was about being a witness for Jesus, and none of it was about the rights of disciples.
What would happen to our witness if we forsook our self-granted “rights,” broke ranks with the disciple’s union and just focused on the reputation of Jesus?
What if we talked about God’s goodness freely and publicly, ignoring public opinion?
I’m talking about praising God, not berating sinners. “Praising God” is the athlete in the winner’s circle thanking Jesus publicly, while “berating sinners” is the guy carrying the sign that basically says, “God hates your sin; mine’s O.K.” Our witness would be much more powerful if we cared more about Jesus than our “rights.”
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: What if we valued our witness more than our rights?
Answers for Today, October 7, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
Disciple’s Rights, More or Less
What if we allowed God to do really weird things with us like, for instance, a reverse jailbreak? God didn’t get Paul and Silas out of jail, He got them in! (Then, out). If we weren’t so preoccupied with our rights and the downward slope of society, we wouldn’t miss as many chances to be a witness for Jesus. How many of us in Paul and Silas’ shoes would have seen being slumped in a Philippian jail as a big witnessing opportunity? Pretty sure I would have missed that one! Unfortunately, I miss most of the lesser ones, too.
Why? I’ve grown accustomed to “disciple’s rights,” a concoction of our society which has determined a few things not in the Gospel, but enshrined as truth. Here are some of them:
*God wants me to be happy. A favorite among many, this one is used as justification for avoiding every unpleasant thing facing a Christian, including remaining married to an unpleasant person. Neither the verse nor the sentiment is found in the Bible; there is, however, a lot about God wanting us to be obedient.
*God wants me to be financially prosperous. The Recession has put quite a dent in that one. Also plucked out of wishful thinking and thin air, this “right” has no grounding in scripture, but many misled fans. If the prosperity gospel were accurate, when the rich young ruler came to Jesus, the Lord would have told His disciples, “Be like this guy! See what keeping the Law will get you? Wealth and honor. Good job, rich young ruler. I’ll bless you with even more.” Instead, Jesus told him his possessions were keeping him from being a disciple. He needed to sell all, give it to the poor, then follow Jesus. That was the road to “happiness” for the young man. He kept his wealth and rights, instead, and went away sad. Lessons?
*I have the right to be healthy, if I’m a Christian and I have faith. A touchy one for many people, especially those who see “promises” in scripture guaranteeing health for all who (sufficiently) believe. Health is seen by some Christians as the “right” of a believer. I’ll back off a little on that one and say it’s always right for us to ask God for healing, plus more faith, but I’m thinking that with everything Jesus has already done for us, He doesn’t really owe us anything, including a healthy earthly body, particularly if we haven’t bothered much to take care of it. The part of this whole discussion which bugs me is when, in effect, someone says, “I’m not going to follow Jesus unless I feel well and I don’t get hurt.” You can’t even play football with that attitude. It doesn’t cut it for discipleship, either.
“Disciple’s rights” are highly overrated.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: The “rights” of disciples of Jesus are mostly fictional.
Answers for Today, October 10, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
Rights Relinquishment
There are more places we could go in exploring disciple’s rights, but I’m getting tired of it. We think we have the right to not be persecuted, though Jesus assured us we would be. We have the right to be “successful,” so if something isn’t working to our satisfaction, we can quit. Where did that come from? We have the right to make up our own plans and follow our own agenda, so long as we ask God’s blessing on it and be sure to pray “in Jesus’ name,” even if this is the first time He’s seen the plan (kind of like an employee giving orders to his boss). We have the right to opt out of any assignment which might be dangerous or conflict with T-ball games. We have the right to not show up if we’re tired. We have the right to have things go our way in all things church, or leave for where we can get better treatment and better leadership. Always, always, we have the right to air our grievances (complain) to whomever will listen, including those who were just beginning to think Jesus might be the answer, but who for some reason suddenly veer off. We have the right to speak our mind, particularly when we have been treated unfairly, unkindly or someone is just trying to bore us to death.
Really? What is the source of all these discipleship rights? It wasn’t Jesus. On the contrary, Jesus instructed would-be disciples to count the cost (everything), say goodbye to the old life (all of it), pick up our cross and follow Him. Where are the “rights” in that picture?
We’re not without any rights at all, though: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13) Now there’s a right worth mentioning! The right to become children of God?! What’s more, this is a right we never have to relinquish. The imaginary “rights” Christian society has assigned us? Those need to go. They’re not helping anyone at all. Rather, they are hurting the cause of Christ, and they’re hurting us.
When’s the last time a hardened sinner, beat up by life, knelt in front of us and pleaded with us, “What must I do to be saved?! Tell me what I need to do to get what you have!”
I’d love to have a few examples in my own life of similar responses to my witness, but I’m coming up with blanks. It seems First Century witnessing was more powerful than Twenty-first Century American witnessing tends to be. They had fewer rights, and a lot more power. We have less power in our witness, and a lot more rights. There seems to be a pattern, here. We ought to break it.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line: Which would we prefer, “rights” or a powerful witness?
Answers for Today, October 11, 2011, originally written 2-24-09
More
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11
American preachers are always talking about how we could win so many more people to Christ if we just had more. More what? More everything. More money, more programs, a bigger building, more parking. More leaders, more training, more organization, more technology, more advertising, more public exposure, more or less contemporary music, more opportunities. I’ve changed my mind.
We need less. “More” is killing us. We already have more than almost anyone in the world! And less conversion results than almost anyone, too.
In order to have a more powerful witness, we need less, far less. As a rule, when it comes to witnessing, even among the few who think that’s their job and not the pastor’s, there is total avoidance of any witnessing where our rights might be ruffled. We’re so concerned about our rights that if the mission will infringe on any of them, resulting in possible pain, embarrassment, inconvenience or whatever, this is a bad idea. If we had less rights, we’d have more converts, wouldn’t we?
How many rights did Jesus give up, in order to come to earth and save us! Disciples don’t have rights; we have a Savior and Lord. That’s enough. And the less we hang onto “rights” and the more we focus on the Lord, the more power there will be in our witness for Him. Same Holy Spirit as in the First Century. Same rights for disciples, too. If we forget about our “rights” and focus on following the Savior, He could do really imaginative, effective stuff with us, just like He did with His First Century crew. Imagine. It could be us, being used of God to establish new churches in impossible places. We could be God’s missionaries, whom He could plant anywhere, knowing that when the time came, rather than whining about our circumstances, we’d be witnessing to His power. Then comes the earthquake. It could be us. Or we could cling to our rights.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: If we focus more on Jesus, less on rights, we’ll see more fruit.
Answers for Today, October 12, 2011
Fourth Quarter Prayers
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?” Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:1-8
Football teams which prevail over their opponents train for the fourth quarter. Although they might be at a disadvantage in terms of talent, the team with the better conditioning will often dominate over better talent as the game draws to a close and the less well-conditioned players run out of gas. It pays to prepare for the fourth quarter.
So in the walk of a disciple of Jesus. Lots of people sign up for the free offer of eternal life, then depart at the first sign of accompanying hardship. “Free” didn’t mean “free from suffering.” In fact, Jesus promised trouble and a personal cross for anyone who would dare to follow Him. That wasn’t in the fine print; that was in the red print.
When it comes to prayer, especially, we must be prepared for the fourth quarter. Those who toss a prayer absently in the bucket and move on will not have a very effective prayer life. Those who prevail in prayer, who refuse to give up, are people who grow stronger in their spiritual life even as life winds down for them. Their lives are “conditioned” by prayer. It shows. There is nothing quite like a fourth quarter saint on their artificial knees. They blow past immature believers who think prayer is boring, every time. Push-ups are boring, too. People who do them are stronger than those who opt out. In the spiritual realm, people who pray and don’t quit wind up in the winner’s circle, every time! The fourth quarter is the test.
We’re in the fourth quarter. Don’t give up, now! When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Over here! I told you He was coming back!
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Keep praying and don’t give up! It’s the fourth quarter.
Answers for Today, October 13, 2011, originally written 3-02-09
A Little Leap
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Acts 17:22-23
America is seeming more like Athens all the time, increasingly open to anything, except the exclusive claims of Christianity. How do we reach people like that? What makes the difference?
During the time in my life when I was struggling the most with my faith, it wasn’t the pro or con arguments which got through; it was the love, and it was the example. I looked at the love around me and knew it was real. I had experienced the love of God and knew it to be true. I had seen the example of people like my parents, and saw that their lives worked. At one point, it just became a leap of faith. Torn between what well-credentialed liberal theologians had to say and the simple faith model I had observed in the lives of my godly parents, I went with the more powerful of the two, the life that worked and the God of the Bible, as opposed to the domesticated version of Him espoused by some. I honestly felt sorry for people who had a god they could understand, and scriptures requiring the validation of their intellect in order to be true. In a moment of time, I skipped over the whole thing and went with a God I already knew and a Book I already loved. It was a “leap” of sorts, but a pretty short one, and I never looked back.
I decided to believe the Bible, just like I always had, and ignore whatever conflicted with it. That was a good choice! I think that’s what will have to happen in America, in order for people to move forward in their faith. They are going to have to take the leap. Some places you can’t get to, gradually. There are places we get stuck, and we never move on, if we have to have explanations for everything along the way. If we try to live by just what we can figure out about the Bible and what makes sense and what we can prove to be true, there isn’t enough left over to get us through real life. If we believe the whole thing, there’s plenty.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Forward spiritual progress comes when we choose to believe God.
Answers for Today, October 14, 2011, originally written 3-02-09
Synagogue Fishing
Paul did his homework, prior to engaging the Athenians; he didn’t waltz in assuming an automatic audience. He studied their culture, their poets, their way of thinking, found a place of commonality, and went from there. He didn’t leave out hard concepts like the Resurrection, but he also didn’t begin there. He started where they were: so afraid of leaving something out that they had made an image to “the unknown god,” just in case!
We need to do like Paul, and start from the page of those we’re trying to reach. In ministering to modern-day Americans, we can make points with the church crowd if we start out by attacking the moral values of the surrounding culture, but we’re not going to connect with the broken people of this age that way. Their minds are on the economy, their messed-up relationships, their loneliness, lack of purpose. Music. Their kids. Sports. Entertainment. I can’t believe many of them go around thinking about how to get forgiveness for their sins. They want help, but “a Savior who died for them” doesn’t compute. This doesn’t mean they don’t need Jesus; it just means they don’t yet know why they might need Him.
The Church needs to listen, then start from where people are, not where we think they should be. The help we offer should be within their reach.
There is still a place for church ministry from the pulpit, but very little evangelism is taking place in sanctuaries in America, anymore. It’s like fishermen waiting back at the house for fish to come find them. Successful fishermen go out. Likewise, successful evangelists. If we reach this generation, we need to haunt the marketplace, because they just aren’t coming to find us, no more than the Gentiles were tracking down the Jews and trying to be converted to Judaism, back then. Sitting in our synagogues is not working. It’s time to go to the marketplace, on purpose, and spend the days there, not marketing the Church like another commodity, but listening to a hurting world, helping them find their place in God’s Kingdom by starting where they are, not where we think they should be.
We don’t all fit in the same spot, but we all fit, somewhere. And whatever we do, we need to approach America as the mission field it is, rather than sitting in our synagogues expecting the world to beat down our door, anytime soon.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: We reach people by starting where they are.
Answers for Today, October 17, 2011, originally written 3-29-09
Missionary Money
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. Acts 18:1-5
New challenges face the Church in America, these days, on top of old challenges we still had not really mastered. A new hurdle to overcome has to do with the poor state of the economy, resulting in substantial decreases in income for most churches and non-profits. Some people are more reluctant to give, now, while others simply have less money to give. Painful cutbacks face many ministries and churches. This is in addition to whatever financial pressures the ministries were facing before the recession.
In times of abundance, there is more room for error when it comes to financial decisions, but few American ministries would express their current money situation these days in terms of having “abundance.” In times like this, it’s pretty important for us to get it right when it comes to financial decisions.
Fortunately, the Bible has a lot to say about finances, with not hundreds but thousands of verses having to do with money, scattered through its pages. The first few verses of Acts 18 might not be considered one of those passages, but I see in it a principle which could really help us, in good times and bad:
Do whatever advances the Great Commission and least hinders it.
It’s not exactly a Bible verse, but I think it’s what Paul and company were doing during their missionary visit to Corinth. The little missionary company was split up, with Paul newly arrived in Corinth, Timothy and Silas still in Macedonia. Paul set about preaching in the synagogue. Somehow he connected with a transplanted Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who had recently come from Rome, where Caesar had expelled all the Jews. Natives of Pontus, an area north of Palestine, Aquila just so happened to also be a tentmaker, Paul’s trade. The two men joined in a tentmaking venture in Corinth to support themselves. Paul preached in the synagogue and made tents on the side. This enabled him to preach to the Corinthians without letting money be an issue in any way. When Timothy and Silas arrived, Paul then devoted full time to preaching, the implication being that Timothy and Silas were now somehow providing for the group.
When Money is the Focus
So, who cares whether or not Paul took up offerings when he got to Corinth, or if he stayed up half the night making tents? Why is this a big deal, worthy of notation in scripture? I happen to think that all of scripture is valuable to us, and usually on multiple levels. The brief mention of how Paul supported himself during this time belies the significance I think it had to his mission.
There were a number of obstacles Paul was having to overcome when it came to introducing the Gospel to the Corinthians. He was bringing a message of purity to a culture so decadent that “to Corinthianize” was used as a verb. These people were in for a big lifestyle change if they were going to follow Christ! Corinth was also a hub of commerce; money meant a lot to these folks. When money is the focus of a culture, everything having to do with it is a distraction. The motive of profit is assumed behind each action. Had Paul arrived asking financial support for his ministry, the Corinthians may have interpreted the Gospel as nothing more than a new means of making a profit. It was important to Paul in this situation to be able to preach the Gospel without money getting in the way. He removed the distraction by refusing to take money from them, even if it was offered.
What was he doing? Paul was removing what he saw to be a hindrance to the spreading of the Gospel. In his thinking, at least in Corinth the Gospel would be better accepted if no one could accuse the preacher of being in it for the money. I think he was right. There are similar situations in our world, today. When money is a distraction from the spread of the Gospel, we do well to minimize or remove that distraction. We’ll come back to that, later.
Paul evidently would have liked to have been full-time in preaching from the very start, but without his companions, he had to fend for himself when he first came to Corinth. He wisely joined forces with Aquila and Priscilla, and made the most of the situation. I would imagine there were conversions and opportunities to witness which came through the avenue of tentmaking, as well as through preaching in the synagogue. However, when Timothy and Silas hit town, Paul seems to have slacked off in the tentmaking and ramped up the preaching ministry.
Do Whatever Best Promotes the Gospel
The Corinthians didn’t know about Jesus, and weren’t going to hear about Him unless someone told them. Paul knew his primary assignment: To preach Christ. The reason he veered off into part-time tentmaking was because he felt that best suited his mission, for the time. When reinforcements arrived to help with income, he dove back into full-time ministry. The fact that he continued to preach without pay gave Paul some needed ammunition later, when dealing with this peculiarly contentious bunch. He was able to “boast” to the Corinthians that he had not accepted money from them. It gave them one less thing about which to complain. Through his hard work and the work of his missionary team, Paul had removed a Gospel barrier to reaching the Corinthians, when he had eliminated the issue of money. The Corinthians already had plenty of issues. They didn’t need one more.
Multiple Disclaimers
I’m about to move into an area where angels fear to tread, that of church finance. Before we even get going, I want to issue all the disclaimers which might help save my hide! “Answers for Today” is an honest search for the answers to questions we face these days, which means that sometimes I don’t like the answers any more than the next person. There’s also the possibility that I’m just plain wrong—hopefully sincerely wrong, but wrong, nonetheless. Another disclaimer I want to make is that these conclusions or recommendations I’m making are not aimed at specific individuals or ministries, nor do I wish for anyone to lose their job or something, on account of me. The direction we’re going now is to see what happens when this principle is applied to present-day circumstances. God will make clear to each of us if He is giving us instructions through this study, and what we are to do.
How about if we begin with really current events, as in this morning? Today, as I write, the CEO of AIG is testifying before Congress, where posturing politicians decry the ridiculous bonuses paid to AIG employees, in a company which ran aground and is so enormous that Congress felt compelled to bail it out. The dozens of million-dollar plus bonuses paid out to executives in the failing company are now the lightning rod of public opinion, as taxpayers who footed the multi-billion dollar bill to do it and are themselves struggling financially, look at those who drove the company into the ditch being paid extravagant sums of money for doing it. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on right now, but creating a new retroactive vengeance tax to confiscate the money or figuring out who the ten most loathsome culprits are in the mess will not get the company on its feet again, nor help the overall economy appreciably. Faultfinding doesn’t get people (or economies) out of messes. What is needed are workable solutions; indictments and accusations don’t fix the situation. They do, however, provide a huge distraction, which often prevents true solutions from ever getting the chance to be heard.
Cows in Ditches
A sage piece of advice from someone who knew about such matters goes like this: When your cow is stuck in the ditch, first, get the cow out of the ditch. Then, figure out how the cow got into the ditch. Third, figure out how to keep the cow from ever getting in the ditch, again. I’ve read of major business executives who used that little plan to pull huge corporations out of the ditch. It’s workable advice! I wish more people would follow that kind of thinking, rather than devoting so much energy to faultfinding.
The three-step plan for dealing with cows in ditches is a practical plan for many types of situations, including church administration, business, and... well, just the other day I tried it on home repair and it worked. The main reason I bring up the AIG situation, though, is to highlight how when money issues become a distraction, progress pretty much stops in all areas.
Keep the Focus on Jesus
Let’s leave the world of business and government and come over to the church world, now. Think of how many times the work of the Gospel has faltered among people because they were distracted by money issues. Someone did something illegal, or just extravagant, with church money, and all attention is placed upon it for the time being. What does it do to the growth of the Gospel? Stops it. What if the perception in the community is that the church is all about money or that the pastor is greedy—should we look for many conversions taking place? Not until the focus is back on Christ, rather than money. Sometimes the attention in a church is on how little money is available; occasionally it’s on how much—either way, when finances occupy center stage in a church, Christ is crowded off to the side, and not many people manage to find Him as Savior.
Paul had the foresight to understand that if he allowed money to be a distraction in his ministry in Corinth, the cause of Christ would be harmed. So, he purposefully isolated this issue from the Corinthian Church by not allowing them to be responsible for his financial support while he was there. Apparently, Paul didn’t do that everywhere, but he did it in Corinth. He sensed that for the Gospel to spread in this city, the best plan was to take the money issue off the table. In this particular situation, a bi-vocational missionary was the most effective missionary. When help arrived, he then became a full-time missionary, supported by others on his team. The key strategy was to keep the focus of the Corinthians on Jesus, not on finances. It worked. The Church was established in Corinth. It wasn’t without sacrifice, but it was worth it.
Now, to the Church in America. We’re not far from Corinth, in terms of the setup. Decadence and immorality? Check. Idolatry? Lots of it. We just don’t worship little stone statues, for the most part. Everything else, though. And one of our top gods is money. It’s not just enjoyed by our culture; it’s worshiped, by millions! Last of all, the Corinthians were no strangers to religion; they just didn’t know Jesus. There, too, some of America is sliding into that category as a society. There’s plenty of spirituality and religion available, but not that much of it is really centered on Jesus Christ.
So, if our goal is to make disciples for Jesus among the people of the U.S., what are some of the distractions which would hinder the acceptance of the message of the Bible? Money would have to be on that list, wouldn’t it? If we’re trying to reach new people for Jesus, wouldn’t it make sense to do our best to keep the focus in the Church on the appeal of the Savior, rather than the distraction of money? Let me be clear. I am not saying I think pastors should not teach on financial principles or tithing. Disciples need to be trained in how God wants us to be good managers of what He has placed in our hands. What I am saying is that we should avoid letting money issues become a barrier to those who don’t even yet know Jesus (such as the Corinthians, when Paul first came to town). We need to advance the Gospel by keeping the focus on Christ, not on other things. This isn’t easy, but it’s important. We would do well to pay attention to it. Keep the focus on Jesus.
What’s Holding the Church Back
Money issues are holding the Church back in America.
However, it’s not what most people think. It’s not because we don’t have enough money (though we usually don’t). It’s not because people aren’t tithing (though they usually aren’t). I think it has much more to do with how money gets in the way and becomes the distraction, one way or another, than it is about the lack of it or even the lack of giving. It’s the preoccupation with it.
Examples:
* “We can’t do the ministry we think God wants us to do, because we don’t have enough money.” Translated, this ends up being, “We can’t obey God,” because we are committed to doing His work in a certain way (our way), which usually entails a lot of extras and perks (earmarks?) not in His original package. I’m not hearing the apostles in Acts discussing whether or not they could afford to obey the Holy Spirit!
* There’s a preoccupation with how the money gets spent. Differing opinions as to what constitutes “excess” provide grist for those desiring to cut back on their giving, with the excuse that their money is being poorly administered. If they were tithing to more worthy organizations or causes, instead, the point might be well taken. I don’t think that’s usually the case, though.
* Church leadership is consumed with financial issues. How much of the time of the church leadership is spent in determining where the money is spent? Oh, man! That’s not counting the kind of time that treasurers and finance committee members put in. That’s just the pastor and church board, elders or deacons or whatever. How much of the conflict in the church revolves around the issue of money? Quite a bit. In some churches, nearly all of the conflict has to do with money issues, at least on the surface.
To sum it up, preoccupation with money hinders the spread of the Gospel. And spreading the Gospel is our mission.
The Great Commission is Our Mission
Jesus’ parting words to His disciples about making disciples in all the nations weren’t because He couldn’t think of what else to say! He was serious, and the disciples took Him seriously, too. Everything they did lined up with His instructions. It was their mission. All the players understood the goal.
In America these days? Not so much. I see churches and ministries going every which way, like twenty-something’s out trying to find themselves. It’s unusual to be able to find a church on-task, bringing people to Christ and helping them to become mature disciples. For many churches, that’s what they say they are doing, but the evidence indicates otherwise. Something like 5% of churches in America are seeing growth through conversion, which means 95% aren’t!
It’s not because we’re broke, either. I don’t know what the income figures are, just that they are in the billions. I wonder what the budget of the Early Church looked like.
Can we agree that the mission of the Church is the Great Commission, at least in theory? That means that all of the money in the Church really is missionary money—it’s to go toward the mission of the Church. If the available money is not contributing toward the mission, something ought to be reallocated until resources line up with the goal. And what is the goal? I like the new denominational mission statement of the Church of the Nazarene, a simple rewording of the Great Commission: “To make Christlike disciples in the nations.” I find it hard to improve upon the simple brevity yet completeness of this statement. The mission? “To make Christlike disciples in the nations.” The money? It’s to help with the mission.
The Business Angle
How does a well-run business look at money? It’s a means to an end. For most for-profit businesses, that end is “more money.” Money for the shareholders, money for the employees, money for the company to expand around the world... The bottom line of business is making a profit. I tire of hearing the adage, “Why can’t the Church be more like a business?” since the Church never has been a business, nor should it be, but here is one place where we could learn from the business world and come closer to Christ’s expectations of us in the process.
For a business, money is used to make more money. In the Church, money should also be looked upon as a means to an end: More disciples of Jesus. It’s not like we can “buy” disciples for Christ or pay people to become Christians (though it might turn out to be more efficient than some things we’ve already tried). Conversion has to be real or it doesn’t count, but we can look around and see what’s resulting in more disciples for Christ and what isn’t, can’t we? It’s not that hard to see what’s a good investment and what’s not, when it comes to the Great Commission. What’s hard is being objective about it.
Here’s the principle we’re coming down to: Resources should be used to accomplish the mission of the Church, which should be “more disciples of Jesus.”
If what we’re doing with available resources (money, time, talent) isn’t resulting in more people following Jesus Christ and becoming mature disciples, maybe we should quit that and reallocate the resources to something more effective.
The Big Three Plea
What would be some examples of this? Let’s go back to the business world for a moment, since it’s safer territory for many of us.
Remember the original bailout plea from the Big Three automakers? Hat in hand, three chief executive officers went to Congress, asking for tens of billions in taxpayer dollars to keep their companies from going under. Ford Motor Company said they could probably scrape by without government assistance, but General Motors and Chrysler insisted that if help wasn’t forthcoming, they’d be gone in a matter of months, if not weeks.
How did each of the CEO’s arrive in Washington, D.C.? They each flew in on their own corporate jets, causing a congressman to lecture, “Couldn’t you have at least ‘jet-pooled’ or something”? When you’re giving even politicians the high ground of grilling you for wasteful spending of tax dollars, you’re doing something! The executives took their public scolding, used more modest means of travel when they came back for their second plea, and seemed mystified as to what had caused the indignation of the public in the first place. From outside the industry, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that perhaps some of the “normal” practices of the automakers were what had helped lead them to the edge of bankruptcy. The culture of corporate America so thoroughly pervaded these people that it didn’t occur to them that individuals and small businessmen and even congressmen might consider their “normal” practices abnormal. Even the guy on the exit ramp with the cardboard sign begging for money knows if he wants spare change, he’d better hide the Cadillac.
What does any of this have to do with the Church? The Church has a pretty extreme PR problem in the United States. Televangelists with their own private luxury jets aren’t helping. “Donations are down! God’s work is going under if we don’t hear from you by credit card, today!” Sell the jet, Bozo.
Unfortunately, the extreme cases aren’t the only ones. Work your way down the church ladder and you find plenty of examples of things which distract or detract from the spreading of the Gospel, leaving an unbelieving populace clicking their tongues and an embarrassed church crowd wanting to change the subject. Bottom line: Is the way we’re dealing with resources hurting the cause of the Gospel? If it is, we ought to do something about it! Get rid of the expense. Get rid of the offense—or at least don’t put the thing in the spotlight. Be willing to do whatever it takes to get the focus back on Jesus and not on the “ministry,” particularly when people consider the ministry to be nothing more than a sideshow money machine, and God to be more of the same.
Support the Church!
At the same time, wherever people are genuinely experiencing changed lives, wherever the Gospel is preached without compromise, wherever disciples are being made for Christ, support the Church! Where it’s working, it’s seldom flashy and even less seldom over-funded. Do whatever helps in spreading the Gospel and avoid whatever hinders the message of Christ.
We’re on a mission, here. We need to remember that. Our resources ought to line up with the mission given us by Jesus, which is the Great Commission. And if we’re doing something which is only hurting the cause of Christ, rather than helping it, we need to do something different, even if people howl.
Further Out on the Ice
So far we’ve been talking mostly in generalities, when it comes to the Church. It would be nice to stop here, nod in agreement that we’re supposed to keep the focus on Jesus and not money, and go on to less sensitive topics. The problem is, we’ve barely left the shore. Further out on the ice, I think I see a hand waving. If we don’t get more specific in applying these principles, we’re not going to get close to those who need real answers instead of nice-sounding platitudes. Tell my family I love them. Here goes...
If you love Jesus, vacuum the church carpet.
Crack.
If you love Jesus, be willing to talk about Him even if they don’t give you money.
Splash!
Well, that went well.
What Hinders the Mission
While I come up for air, let’s talk specifics about what hinders the Great Commission, starting with the far-off arena of television ministries.
Television is an incredible medium, its potential to influence, astounding. With precious few exceptions, though, what I have seen of television “ministry” is more of a deterrent to the Gospel than a help. This is only my personal opinion, but if as a Christian, I’m often turned off by what I see, I can only imagine the effect it must have on millions of non-believers, disgusted by the antics of people who come off as absolute frauds. For the person who never attends church, but who has come across religious programming on television, what do you suppose they think the Church is like? What they saw on TV! Why would they think differently? And would what they saw cause them to want to give their life to Christ, or would what they saw lead them to think that Christianity is nothing more than religious infomercials, with shysters making money off the easily duped?
I’m sure there are those who have been genuinely converted, healed and whatever through the influence of these programs, so it’s not a total loss, but to my thinking, the shows which distort the Gospel into a weird sort of circus, all the while pleading for donations, make everyone else’s job harder, in trying to convince a skeptical world that what they saw on a late-night cable program isn’t at all what the Gospel is about.
Television is a great medium, but it’s expensive. The sheer cost of trying to minister in this way has a way of distorting the message. Often it veers toward a “health and wealth” gospel which people like to hear, but which is more fund-raising technique than biblical truth. The pressures of coming up with large sums of money on a weekly basis cause the focus of most television ministries to be geared toward raising money to keep the ministry afloat. “Soft,” inoffensive subjects are the standard fare. The parts of the Gospel which are harder to hear don’t get much air time! Thus, the Gospel gets distorted, with only the popular parts of the message offered in the first place, and some pretty drastic license taken with scripture to make it fit the feel-good atmosphere required to maintain a faithful, contributing television audience.
If God says, “Go into television!” fine. Obey Him. If not, please don’t. I don’t think it’s helping, and there seem to be more casualties than converts.
Meanwhile, one of the best, most effective ministries I’ve seen in recent years is a small string of movies which have emerged from Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. Someone forgot to tell them churches couldn’t or shouldn’t make movies. Their third movie, “Fireproof,” has already been used of God to help thousands of marriages. Not only that, but a movie shot with a $500,000 budget grossed over $33 million in box office sales before even becoming available on DVD. To me, this is an example of a financial investment that advances the Great Commission. I would that a lot more of God’s money was so effectively spent! Way to go, Sherwood Baptist!
Tentmaking in Jesus’ Name
From what I understand, manual labor was despised by the Roman upper class, in Paul’s day. The fact that one of the leaders of the Early Church was willing to engage in it to support himself, in order to be able to preach the Gospel free of charge to the Corinthians, indicates the commitment of the apostle. He must also have realized that manual labor could damage his chances of making inroads with the aristocracy. Apparently, he didn’t care. In addition, I would imagine that Paul had plenty of excuses for not engaging in anything very physical. How many times already had he been beaten? He’d been left for dead at least once, following a stoning. Had the tentmakers’ union demanded a physical, I doubt if Paul would have passed. This was one tough, committed apostle. He did whatever he felt he had to do, when it came to fulfilling the Great Commission.
That same attitude is largely missing in the modern Church. It shows up in things like this—and the unbelieving world notices:
We say we love Jesus with all our heart. The Church is important to us. We would do anything for our Lord.
Just don’t ask me to vacuum the church carpet. Or mow the church grass. And don’t ask me to clean the church toilets! Don’t even think about it!
Talk to church leaders of any size church and they’ll tell you how hard it is to get volunteers for the less desirable jobs. Usually, the church has to hire somebody before it gets done. That’s just the way it is. “But I hate janitorial work!” Amen, brother. Me, too. Once in a while, we come across someone who enjoys cleaning “God’s house,” usually because they love both God and cleaning. There’s never a line vying for the position of volunteer custodian in a church, and sometimes it’s hard to find people who will even do it if you pay them.
That’s how it goes with the less desirable positions; what about the spotlight slots? Pastor. Worship leader. Associate in charge of youth, children, seniors, etc. The reason it costs so much to run a church is because in so many cases, not much is happening unless the church is paying for it to get done. I’m not begrudging anyone their paycheck, particularly for those jobs few people are willing to do, even for money. Neither am I saying that ministers and associates and musicians shouldn’t accept or be given a paycheck for their work. All I’m asking is that we consider how it must look to the people we’re trying to win to Christ, when we say we love Jesus but we’re reluctant to do anything just because we love Him. Do you see what that mind set does to our witness? It’s no big deal to see someone cleaning a toilet because they get paid to clean toilets and it’s the only job they could get. It is a big deal to see someone whom you know hates cleaning toilets, but who is willing to do it as an act of love for Jesus.
How about preaching? Preaching is effective, and I love doing it, whether or not I get paid (usually, I do). But if I were a non-believer, I’d be much more impressed with the spontaneous, sincere testimony of someone who cared about me, who told me about Jesus because they loved me, as opposed to a professional minister doing it from a pulpit because it was their job to tell people about Jesus. I’d also be more impressed with either of them if they were talking about how great Jesus is somewhere outside a church building, rather than inside, where I would expect God-talk to be going on.
Sincere Commercials
Both the pastor and the janitor are worthy of their pay; what bothers me about the usual scenario is the subtle attitude that says that both vacuuming the church carpet and talking about Jesus are actions which we leave to paid employees, and our personal responsibility ends when we contribute to the church coffers to help pay their wages. The sometime result is that even those who are doing the ministry and the unpleasant chores of the church body feel like hirelings and nothing more, and the witness to the watching community comes across the same as a television commercial, where a smiling actor is paid to convince people that they sincerely adore the product they’re being paid to sell. The product information might be accurate and the actor might actually be sincere, but the seasoned TV viewer knows to be skeptical of all paid advertisements; those people are not out there because they care about your needs, even if they might. They are paid to try to convince you that it’s all about you, when of course, it’s all about them and the company they’re representing.
When Paul preached the Gospel to the Corinthians free of charge, he cut through that natural skepticism. It turns things around when you have a message so important that you’re willing to pay your own way just to get it to people about whom you care! I think the present-day world around us would be more affected by the witness of the Church if it came to them without the appearance of just being another paid advertisement. I still recall the story of a secular radio station years ago which offered free air time to anyone willing to preach the Gospel without mentioning the name of their church. No takers in the entire town. The ministers were unwilling to take the time to talk about Jesus to a secular audience unless there was the possibility of benefit coming back to them in the form of more people coming to their church. Sad. I understand, though. I know of several ministers who have been booted from their churches because they were spending too much time trying to minister to those outside the church, instead of tending to the many needs of the “flock” paying their salary. Once again, how does this look to the world? And how in the world does this attitude help in fulfilling the Great Commission—making Christlike disciples in the nations? The attitude that says “I will only speak about Christ or do acts of service in His name when there is benefit coming back to me” is an attitude which is greatly hindering the Great Commission. Wouldn’t we do well to repent of such an attitude and show the world a Church that loves Jesus and would do anything for Him, whether clean toilets or witness to how great He is, even if it landed us in prison? That’s the attitude which effectively introduced the Gospel to city after city in a perverted, cynical Roman culture, two millennia ago. It would work in our perverted, cynical culture today, too, if we adopted it as a sincere lifestyle, rather than another marketing approach. “Anything for Jesus.” What a concept.
Church Finance Triage
I know of very few businesses, government agencies, schools, churches, ministries or families which are not facing financial pressures, these days. For all of the above, I would recommend going through that simple three-step get-the-cow-out-of-the-ditch formula discussed at the beginning of this chapter. It makes sense! Deal with the urgent, first, however it has to be done, and don’t waste a lot of time in assigning blame. This is the medical idea of triage, where whoever says “chest pain” goes right in to the emergency room, while ingrown toenails sit in the waiting room for another two hours. After the medical team does their best to prevent anyone from dying on their watch, then comes the lecture to the heart patient on slimming down and going smoke free, a little advice on proper foot care to the toenail person, and a specific plan for both on how best to prevent future visits. Oh, yes. And the bill.
It makes sense to triage the needs facing us at every level, these days. And sometimes, what needs to happen is that we need to let something go, because it’s too costly or it’s ineffective, or we will lose something more important to our mission if we don’t let it go.
Churches and ministries are definitely not exempt from the need to cut back, these days. All but a few of the ministries with which I’m acquainted are struggling, financially. Finance committees are huddled around tables trying to make ends meet in churches, just like in business and government. When it comes to financial triage in the Church, how do we determine what’s important enough to save, and what will have to be thrown overboard or tabled indefinitely?
This is where that other principle kicks in:
Do whatever advances the Great Commission and least hinders it.
If something has to be eliminated, why not start with anything that was already hindering our mission?! Meanwhile, what should be safe at the top of the priority list? Whatever is most effectively advancing our mission—whatever is most helpful when it comes to making Christlike disciples in the nations. Then evaluate everything in between according to its effectiveness in advancing the mission. If there are cuts which can be made to lower the cost without adversely affecting the advancement of the Gospel, that’s an option, when cuts are necessary. Back to the cow in the ditch: The mission is to get her out of the ditch, whatever it takes, whatever it costs. If the cow dies in the ditch, the new barn you built for her won’t do much good. Nor does it work to try to remove a living cow from the ditch in pieces, if you want her to remain living. Do whatever it takes to accomplish the main mission successfully. It may be that there’s not much left for anything else. It doesn’t matter, because if the main mission is not being accomplished, the rest of it is meaningless. Come to think of it, I could show you a lot of empty church barns, with hardly any cows inside. Hmm.
Sacred Cows in the Sights
O.K., enough about Holstein’s. It’s time to upset the few people whom I’ve not already irritated. To do this, I’m going to suggest we consider dispatching what for some may be a sacred cow: The church bulletin.
Before you start throwing food, insults or cow chips, let me ask those who may have enshrined the church bulletin as a necessary part of our service to Christ a simple question: Do you know of anyone who has ever been saved because of a church bulletin?
Let’s make that two questions: Do you know anyone who has recently been saved?
That was a setup, since 95% of American churches are not growing through seeing people saved for any reason, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who even indirectly was led to Christ through a church bulletin.
What’s helping to advance the Great Commission? Sorry, but I don’t think church bulletin makes the list. Nor does most of the rest of what we’re doing! That was painful to say, but unfortunately, as good as some of it may feel to us, and as pretty as the barn looks, the lost cows are still in the ditch, and dying by the millions! Our response? We grit our teeth at the news, shake our heads at the culture, and stay as far as possible away from the ditch because we just know that if we go down there, we’re going to get dirty, and one of the things might even follow us home if we helped them. Instead of teaming up and prying lost cows out of the mud, we sit in barns with heat pumps and big building payments, paying someone to tell us about the plight of lost cows everywhere and the Savior who is available to them, while glancing down at the folder to see how much longer it is until lunch. Next week, we’ll do the same thing. It’s our “worship.” The pastor sometimes feels he’s on American Idol, with a big panel judging his performance. There is a weekly dread that this may have been his last week on the show if he chose the wrong sermon topic, things didn’t go well or he didn’t “stand out.”
Ah, the Great Commission! The what? Advancing it—you know, making Christlike disciples in the nations? So we are honestly convinced that the way we do things is advancing the Great Commission? I’d hate to see a retreat.
Bigger Problems
If we’re honest, it’s not hard to see that most churches have much bigger problems than a few inefficiencies in the way resources are spent. There are many American churches where it has been a long, long time since anyone even paid attention to a cow in the ditch. If there’s no heart for the lost in a body of people, they can be pretty efficient in their finances, yet utterly ineffective when it comes to advancing the Gospel.
Back to the bulletin. If small churches (under 100) are looking for a place to save money, this might be a good place to find it. In tepid defense of the bulletin, it can be helpful in minimizing the need for platform announcements, though the important ones are usually doubled up on, anyway. In larger churches where there is a lot going on, a bulletin serves as a catalog to programs and services available to people. In this way, it can be helpful to newcomers. Most of the regular attenders don’t need it, though, and don’t read it, because it says the same thing week after week. In order to pick up the variation they were supposed to notice, they’d have to read the whole thing, which they don’t do because they assume there are no variations. See what I’m saying?
In place of the bulletin, newcomers coming into a service could be given a visitor’s packet which would tell them what they needed to know, important announcements could be given from the platform and/or put on a screen, and a weekly obligation costing quite a bit in terms of time and money could be eliminated.
The bulletin is not without its benefits. In large churches, where people don’t know one another, something like this is more of a necessity, even if it’s still relatively inefficient. Not only that, but even in a smaller body, if all it’s going to do is cause a big stir or cost someone their job to eliminate the bulletin, the potential trouble caused from dropping it is probably not worth the potential savings. Plus, I happen to like the bulletin; I just don’t like the amount of work and expense that ends up going into it, if it could be more effectively used elsewhere.
For some of us, the idea of a bulletin is appealing because we (A) enjoy seeing things in print; (B) want to know what’s going on, what’s going to happen and when; (C) like to have something to hold in our hands so we don’t feel so awkward. I plead guilty on all counts.
Probably the biggest benefit to having a church bulletin is that it forces the procrastinators (guilty, again) to get their stuff figured out prior to Saturday night or Sunday morning. Musicians, pastors and associates, church leaders—all of them have planning and preparation to do before the worship event on Sunday, and the printing of a bulletin helps keep them on track to get it done earlier in the week. This is good (usually). The bulletin prods people who might otherwise “prepare” by randomly flipping open songbooks or Bibles on the way to the platform on Sunday morning. Adequate preparation usually results in more excellence, or at least it goes in that direction. Lack of preparation almost always shows.
Flip Side
There’s a flip side to this, though.
First, the more preparation and routine is locked in, the harder it is to have anything spontaneous happen.
Second, what was intended as preparation in pursuit of excellence can come off as either predictably boring or just weird.
Third, the bulletin eats up a lot of time and money. Is it worth it?
These days, people expect everything they see in print to be of high quality. That’s why there’s an expensive copy machine sitting in the church office, complete with maintenance contract. The main use of the copier is to print the bulletin.
The bulletin is the biggest task of the week for the church secretary. She spends hours each week hitting up people for their information, then editing it, compiling the bulletin, copying it and folding it. It’s the biggest part of her workweek. Without the bulletin, she wonders if they would even need her. And people still never seem to know what’s going on, no matter how many times she’s told them, “It was in the bulletin”!
Even if the church bulletin were a great evangelism tool, which it isn’t, would it warrant the cost, in terms of resources devoted to it each week? True, it prompts planning, usually a good thing, but it also requires valuable time of everyone who is doing anything in the church.
Back to the point about the church bulletin being “predictably boring.” Can you tell me what your bulletin will say before you open it? It’s not hard, is it? This announcement will be over here; on this side of the page it always says that; we have three songs, then the offering; there’s a thingy for visitors that goes here. I already know what we’re going to do before I even go in the building. A little bit of the information changes from week to week, and they do different songs; otherwise, you could give me last week’s bulletin and I probably wouldn’t notice the difference, especially if I forgot to even open it, which happens, sometimes.
What if the Holy Spirit wanted to do something unusual or out of the ordinary in a Sunday service—something not in the church bulletin? Would He get the cooperation of the Church? Or would He be out of luck unless He made it a point to get with a couple leaders early in the week, before the bulletin was printed? Truth is, in a lot of churches, if it’s not in the bulletin, they’re not going to do it! And if it is in the bulletin, the Holy Spirit has to do something pretty drastic before they’ll skip it! In terms of variety and spontaneity, we’d be very much better off in our worship services if we didn’t even have a bulletin, and it would save a lot of time and money. Rather than creating anticipation, it makes everything programmed and predictable. Even a little weird.
A Weird Way to Worship
What is worship?
Is it singing? Is it talking? Is it giving? Listening? Serving? What?
Let’s try a synonym and see if it helps: Adoration. God wants us to adore Him, right? If we “worship” someone, it means we adore them. In order to adore someone, does that mean we have to sing? Does music have to be involved? Do we have to say it out loud in order for them to know we adore them? Can we give a gift to someone or serve them without adoring them? Does listening to someone mean we adore them? Enough said, students. Spring break is in a week.
While all these things may be ways we express adoration for someone, adoration is an attitude of the heart. If it doesn’t come from the heart, all actions are empty. So it is with worship. If we don’t adore and worship God from the heart, whatever we do is empty. It’s not worship unless that’s the attitude of our heart.
Think once again of the people we are trying to reach with the Gospel. One more time: That’s our mission. To me, the best way to convince people that God is good is if they see someone they trust who is totally in love with God, who adores Him, without apology. If what they see in our lives is sincere adoration for Jesus, it doesn’t matter how that adoration is expressed; if it’s real, they know. But how could they be less than confused if our lips are saying we love and adore Jesus Christ, but the attitude of our heart shows differently? I’m talking now more about the actual atmosphere of a worship service, when visitors look around and see people seemingly bored to death with the whole thing, with some folks looking like kids being forced to sing “Happy Birthday” to someone they don’t even like. And when it comes to expressing adoration, planning helps show we care, while predictability generally doesn’t.
We call what we do in church meetings “worship.” Using the synonym “adoration,” what would you think if you were unfamiliar with all things church, and wound up as a spectator in a building where you had been told people were gathering to adore Jesus Christ? Would what you would see be what you had expected? Do you think it would make sense, or would it be confusing to you? Would you come away with the feeling that these people really do adore their God, or would it seem to you that they scarcely paid attention to Him, yet said the only reason they were in the building was to “worship” Him?
One last time I’m going to beat up on the poor bulletin, then let it go. Christianity is supposed to be about loving and serving Jesus Christ, right? An attitude of adoration toward Him, where we express our love in every possible way. A little bit like dating.
The Dating Folder
Can you imagine going on a date with someone and having them hand you a little folder describing everything you were going to do for the evening? The first time would be kind of cool. “Wow! You really put a lot of thought into this!” The second time would probably be appreciated, too, except you notice that there wasn’t much difference between last week’s and this week’s. By the third date, when he hands you the bulletin you’re thinking, “I’d rather have roses. And I’d rather that you surprised me, and put the time and thought into something new. This is no longer new. In fact, now it’s kind of weird.”
What would it do to a hundred ladies walking into church on Sunday if they received a beautiful rose as they came in the door instead of a bulletin for that week? Not every week, but once. Would they complain that they didn’t have a bulletin? I’m pretty sure it would cost less than it does to give them a bulletin, when you figure paper, copier and labor costs. Who knows? It might even advance the Kingdom a little. Just a thought.
Do whatever advances the Great Commission and least hinders it.
There are plenty of settings where the absence of a bulletin (even for a week) would be a bigger distraction than it would be worth. If having a program in hand is a big deal to a sizeable number of people in a church, or if there are enough people that the bulletin is really needed as a communication tool, keep it. But if the church is small, the cost of producing a bulletin outweighs its advantages, and there is need to cut expenses, I’d strongly consider eliminating it, or going with something less frequent—kind of a “bulletin for the month” or something.
What this is all really about is trying to do whatever advances the Great Commission. Where it gets sticky is when these decisions by necessity drift over into personnel issues, usually a substantial part of any church budget.
When it comes to church employees such as custodians and secretaries, I think each situation would need to be examined to determine whether this setup was advancing the Gospel or hindering it. More often than not, there is either “history” involved or ties of family or friendship, which make objective decisions impossible or irrelevant, when it comes to positions of employment within a church. On top of that, churches hate to fire anyone for any reason, if nothing else, because it looks bad, and so easily results in hard feelings. When an employee is also a member of the church or a relative of a member, it’s that much harder to hold them to any kind of performance standard. Consequently, many a church is burdened with incompetent employees who cannot be dismissed, for various personal reasons. The best time to think about their qualifications and value to the mission of the church is before they are hired! Probationary employment is sometimes helpful, in this regard. If an employee feels they have some sort of “tenure,” they probably do, in the church world. If changes need to be made, often the only thing which works is the elimination of that position, entirely. The position may be cut back, dropped entirely or replaced with volunteers, if financial conditions necessitate a change, anyway.
Best Time to Make a Change
Whatever changes need to be made in a group, I’m convinced that the best time to make them is when the status quo is no longer an option. Many people dislike change, some of them intensely. The only time you get those folks to come along with you in changing things is when leaving it the same is no longer an option. For instance, a husband and wife can be divided over whether to buy a different house. He wants a new one, she likes the old one. She isn’t changing her mind. Then the house burns down, or they move to a different city. The status quo is no longer an option. At this juncture, both of them want a new house, since keeping the old one isn’t possible, anyway. Now, it’s just a matter of finding a new house they both like.
It works this way in business, too. Businesses don’t like to lay off employees, either, so in tough economic times, they first stop hiring new people. Next, they don’t replace people who quit or retire. They will move folks around to different positions to fill the slots, if feasible, or increase the workload for the remaining employees—anything to keep from hiring anyone new or having to lay someone off. Incentives are offered to people close to retirement age to accept an early retirement package, reducing the cost to the company, since the employer will either not replace the worker or will hire a younger, less expensive employee to replace them. Laying people off comes only after other options have been exhausted. Churches are wise to take great pains to treat employees with maximum fairness and grace. We should bend over backwards to be an excellent employer, once we have placed ourselves in that position. If possible, the time to make an employment change is when the decision doesn’t affect an existing employee. If a position needs to be dropped, anyway, the best time to do it is when that position is vacant.
Church Staff Compensation
Now we come to what for many churches represents the largest percentage of their budget (particularly if there are no building payments to make): clergy compensation. Whether a small church with a solo pastor or a larger church with multiple staff members, clergy compensation and related expenses are going to make up a big portion of the church budget. In the institutional, organized Church in America, clergy positions are generally only given to those who have trained for the ministry in some formal way, usually college or Bible school, and often with graduate studies in a seminary, besides. Some ministers have doctoral degrees. Whatever the route taken to gain clergy status, it usually represents considerable amounts of time and expense in meeting the qualifications expected. Those are just the educational requirements. On top of this are whatever other qualifications are required by the body ordaining the ministerial candidate. These may include experience in ministry settings, annual interviews, or whatever the church decides is necessary to weed out the unqualified. It’s not an easy thing to become an ordained minister.
It’s also not an easy thing to support a family on a minister’s income. For this reason, a large number of ministry spouses are employed. It’s not uncommon at all for the spouse’s income to exceed that of the professional minister, even though the minister may be more highly educated than the spouse. That’s just the way it is.
In generations past, the ministry was highly regarded as an honorable profession within the community. That status has noticeably faded, particularly in more liberal parts of the nation.
While public esteem has diminished, expectations have increased for the American pastor. He or she is expected to somehow compare with television and radio preachers in communication excellence, provide shepherding to any and all, and maintain a godly CEO image which guides the church as an institution, while staying humble and spiritual. The senior pastorate has become a position few can handle. It is complex, sometimes contradictory in its expectations; ministers and their families often suffer greatly at the hands of purportedly well-meaning church leaders. Many ministers are exiting the ranks of the clergy, these days, and many of them are doing it because they have been devastated. Please hear me when I say that the last thing I want to do is give anyone more ammunition for mistreatment of the clergy! As a group, I would say that we’ve already had about enough!
Here’s what I’m suggesting, when it comes to the Church:
Do whatever advances the Great Commission and least hinders it.
When we’re starting from scratch—a new missionary endeavor, a new church plant—we have the freedom to come up with a plan for advancing the Gospel and just implement it, without worrying about past obligations. Not so within an established church. The person who moved cross-country to occupy a ministry position should not suddenly find his employer has had a change of philosophy concerning clergy compensation! Stranding a ministry family financially “in Jesus’ name” is not going to advance the Gospel; it will hinder it pretty greatly, particularly in the home of that minister. As I said before, if a church needs to make major financial changes affecting personnel, the time to do it is when there are no personnel to be affected. Any changes which are made in an established church need to be made as gradually and gracefully as possible. It only takes a little bit of unfairness or misunderstanding on the part of a church to hinder the Gospel pretty effectively in a community.
The Non-believer’s Vantage Point
With the caveat that everything needs to be done with much prayer and the Spirit’s guidance, let’s look at this thing from the position of the non-believer the Church is attempting to reach.
Things which make the Gospel more attractive to the non-believer:
*Sincerity
*When the Gospel is delivered without ulterior motives
*When it involves risk or sacrifice to deliver the Gospel
*When obstacles are removed which detract from the Gospel
Money issues which hinder the Gospel:
*If the minister appears to be lazy. People resent it if they think their money is going to someone who isn’t doing anything. They don’t concentrate on spiritual things, because they’re distracted by their preoccupation with someone who, in their opinion, is not doing their job.
*If the minister seems greedy, or uses money as a weapon for trying to induce guilt. This happens too frequently. It’s what leads people outside the church to surmise, “They’re only after my money.” Sometimes, it’s true! Whether it is or not, even that perception is a real killer when it comes to evangelism.
*If there seems to be waste or excess in the church’s finances.
*Preoccupation with money in the church—either not having enough of it or an employer/employee mentality that sidetracks genuine worship (It seems no one is willing to do anything unless they’re being paid).
The Minister’s Vantage Point
Are we going to get paid? This is the pertinent question for the minister,
and of even greater interest to the minister’s spouse! Let’s try it in several different situations.
First of all, in a church plant (new church):
In a church plant, does it advance the Gospel to pay the minister? It depends on the attitude of the minister and the attitude of the attending people. If the issue of money is not keeping people from Christ, by all means pay the guy if you have any money!
For the church planter, I think it’s fine to accept whatever comes your way. If you’re starting a church, you’re probably earning everything you get! It’s healthier if there is support coming from outside sources, too, even if it’s temporary. In fact, it’s better if outside help is clearly temporary, so you don’t start a welfare church, afraid to outgrow its welfare status. As far as outside employment, I think this one comes down to the principle: Do whatever best promotes and least hinders the spreading of the Gospel.
It takes a lot of ingenuity to begin a new work. The principle of what best advances the Gospel is a moving target, in situations like these. Sometimes, it may be best to dive wholeheartedly into “ministry,” allowing a spouse or an outside support group to finance your ministry habit until the church is established. I would definitely pray about part-time employment, though, were I planting another church. Certain jobs or businesses are ideal for establishing contacts, while at the same time removing financial pressure from the new church. For example, I found working at a grocery store meant I would come into contact with nearly everyone in town, each week. There are numerous job situations where one can have an income and a ministry simultaneously, in addition to whatever is happening in the church. I think these are a good deal for church planters, and pastors of smaller churches. Pray about it. God knows what He wants you to do.
Established Small Church (100 people or less):
Many small churches are high maintenance, with high expectations of their minister. A maximum amount of grace and wisdom is required, in order to minister in a small church. In short, you need God! (That’s good). Allow Him to guide you in how to best minister. If you focus on loving the people instead of on trying to change them or grow the church, you’ll probably get further in those areas, anyway, and have a lot more fun along the way. When it comes to finances, it’s the job of the church leaders to figure out how much to pay you. I’ve found that if I left that decision entirely to them, they were more generous toward me than I would have been to myself. If the church is open to a bi-vocational situation, and the Gospel can be promoted at the same time, I would also pray about that. And if the church is ready to accept more of the day-to-day ministry responsibilities, and not leave it all up to the paid “professional,” I look on that as very healthy! Encourage them and love them. Have a good time. If you do, the church probably won’t stay in the small church category for long, anyway, and you may have to quit your other job in order to minister full-time through the church.
Intermediate and Large Churches
In the present-day set-up, the obligations placed upon a pastor of a church of over 200 people is such that there’s no way he could do it, plus pursue another job on the side, at least not in a denominational church. I’m not saying it isn’t being done or is impossible, but the bigger the church, the more pressure there is, and the more crises. If a person is in charge of a larger church, he had better be paid everything you can give him, because he doesn’t have time to do anything else! For churches between 100-200 in attendance, the situation is more debatable. Pray and proceed.
Organic Church
“Organic” is the term associated with groups of Christians who meet together as followers of Christ, without formal leadership, buildings, recognized clergy or formal organization. This is the kind of “church” which currently meets in my home, weekly, even while we continue to attend an institutional church. I see the organic church as a tool God will use effectively in the future, even as He continues to bless the institutional church wherever it’s paying attention to Him.
The clergy don’t get paid in the organic church, because there’s no distinction made between followers of Christ. Individuals are free to minister according to their gifts, with the only leader being Christ, the Head of the Church. The downside of this, for trained clergy, is that there is no salary; the upside is that all the ministry you get to do is because you love Jesus, and He somehow provides. Also, you’re not alone, in an “us and them” situation, as so often happens in ministry in the institutional church. We’re all equal at the foot of the cross. For people who need the various trappings of the institutional church, organic can be a little too much. If that’s the case, please stay put! But if the Lord is calling you to venture into something which might seem foreign at first, it’s worth the leap, as long as it’s Him calling you.
The Church Member’s Vantage Point
My hat is off to you if you made it this far! We’ve been talking about things
few enjoy discussing, plus I know some of my suggestions must seem pretty far out. Thanks for hanging with me. I want to speak to those of you who are on various church boards and committees, striving to steer your church through the current crisis, whatever it may be. God wants to help you! It’s His Church. If you ask Him for guidance, you’ll get all you need.
If we come back to the principle of advancing the Gospel, “making Christlike disciples in the nations,” it becomes more readily apparent to us what is crucial and what is not. Move prayerfully, carefully and with grace, but move in the direction of the mission whenever there is opportunity! If there is a boulder in the way, go around it, rather than beating your head against it. Do everything in love, with the assumption that others love Jesus as much as you do. Most of all, listen to God, then obey Him. He has allowed you to be in a position of influence for a reason. He trusts you to pay attention to Him, and move in the direction which helps spread the love of Christ to the world.
Conclusion, Finally!
I don’t know why it’s taken me weeks to work through this topic. I guess it’s because I’m afraid of hurting the Church I love by tossing around opinions which could get people off-track. At the same time, I’m frustrated when I look at the Church in our nation and how lifeless and ineffective so much of it is. When we seem to be sliding backwards each year in the evangelization of our country, it doesn’t seem like the right thing to assure everyone that “We’re doing fine, just keep doing what you’ve been doing!” Nor do I wish to discourage people into giving up on the Church, just because we’re not experiencing revival at the moment. My desire is that we would follow Jesus. He not only knows the way, He IS the way! If there’s something we should change, He is faithful to let us know what it is. If we are to stay the course, He makes that clear to us as well. Ours is to ask Him, and obey. The Lord doesn’t need any of us to make His Church succeed. He has given us a clear mission, though: Go and make disciples of all nations. If we do whatever promotes that mission, and try to avoid whatever hinders it, we’ll be doing O.K.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Do whatever advances the Gospel, and least hinders it.
Answers for Today, October 18, 2011
His Word, His World
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
who formed you from the womb:
I am the LORD, who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
who frustrates the signs of liars
and makes fools of diviners,
who turns wise men back
and makes their knowledge foolish,
who confirms the word of his servant
and fulfills the counsel of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, “‘She shall be inhabited,’
and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built,
and I will raise up their ruins’;
who says to the deep, ‘Be dry;
I will dry up your rivers’;
who says of Cyrus,’He is my shepherd,
and he shall fulfill all my purpose’;
saying of Jerusalem,’She shall be built,’
and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
Isaiah 44:24-28
Want to know where it all came from? It’s in the Bible, starting from the first verse. God made it. Alone. We can’t say we haven’t been told.
I love this prophetic portion which speaks of making fools of diviners, while confirming the word of His servants, even when they do outrageous things like Isaiah just did: Give the name, 150 years in advance, of the king who would order the restoration of a city and temple which has not yet been torn down! The historian, Josephus, says that when this prophecy was read to the ruler, whose name “happened” to be Cyrus, he was so impressed that he did what the Bible had prophesied he would do. Cool, huh? Pull that one off, pagan wise men!
On a day when man’s “wisdom” is running thin, and diviners predict all manner of nonsense, it’s good to know our God will come through. We desperately need His Word, His truth. It’s true because He is true. That will never change.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: God’s Word is true because God is true.
Answers for Today, October 24, 2011
No Other God, No Other Way
Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.’
“Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me,
are righteousness and strength;
to him shall come and be ashamed
all who were incensed against him.
In the LORD all the offspring of Israel
shall be justified and shall glory.”
Isaiah 45:22-25
There is no other God. Believing the oft-repeated message in Isaiah would save so many people so much grief, particularly since the One True God promises that one day all will believe, anyway. Seekers for righteousness and strength ought to look to the One and Only God, who has a monopoly on all things holy. Seekers of salvation waste time looking for alternative routes. There’s only one way out of this sinful mess mankind has created: trusting in Jesus Christ, God’s Son for salvation. There’s no other Savior, no other God. That’s the truth, though skeptics sneer at it being “narrow-minded.” Only one God. Wouldn’t it make sense that if there were only one God, His Way would be the only way?
Well-meaning cultists try to talk us out of the Trinity: “See? How can you believe Jesus is God, when Jehovah says “I am God, and there is no other”?
Umm. Because Jehovah, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all claimed Jesus is God? Because Jehovah called Jesus His Son, and Jesus called Jehovah His Father? Because Jesus died to save all who would believe.? Ultimately, all will believe, including current skeptics and rebels against truth. Anyone with sense should follow this plan, now: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! Then get baptized, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: There is only one God, one way to heaven. Believe and be saved!
Answers for Today, October 25, 2011, originally written 4-06-09
Pray, Then Stay
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Acts 18:5-11
What needs to happen in the Church? Christians, especially pastors, need to be guided by the Holy Spirit and not their circumstances!
This passage is one more example of how the Early Church was under the direction of the Holy Spirit, not Headquarters or even the missionaries. The vision given to Paul by the Lord helped him know just what to do, plus providing him with peace.
The way to find God’s will is to pray. We need to check with God about everything. There are so many ways to get it wrong. Usually, I find that I make my mistakes when I assume the answer and don’t think I need to check with God on that one!
Paul felt a keen responsibility to give his fellow Jews every opportunity to receive Christ. When they came out against him in opposition, he was released from this responsibility, and placed it back upon them. In terms of location, though, he merely moved next door! The Christians used the synagogue parking lot for their overflow meetings at Titius Justus’ house, with Paul as teacher.
What does this say about some of our present situations? People need to stay put when God tells them to stay put! The conflict Paul faced in Corinth was something he had come to expect. It was coming from his own people, the Jews, and it was over the same old thing: Jealousy. Paul could have simply left Corinth, but God made it clear that his work was not finished, yet, so he stayed. The way to find God’s will is to pray. Then we stay put until He gives us permission to go.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: We pray, then stay wherever God leads until He says “Go.”
Answers for Today, October 26, 2011, originally written 4-06-09
Peace in Different Directions
I’m thinking of pastor after pastor who is living in conflict with his church. The church people mistreat him, attack him, vilify him, until finally he says “Enough!”, shakes out his suit at them and piles his family into the moving van to try ministry in a less hostile environment, which often isn’t. The church tosses its head in bewilderment and begins the search for a replacement, the pastor trudges down the road toward his next assignment, and very few people are finding Jesus.
What’s wrong? Instead of going to God in prayer, people go to each other and gripe. Lines are needlessly drawn in the sand over petty things, while the big things of the Gospel are ignored. Major decisions are based on pride, instead of leading sought through prayer.
When the answers come from God, they are specific to that situation at that time, and because they come from God, they are right. When He makes it clear what we are to do, we can rest easy—now we know what to do! Caution: It’s not always the same answer for what appears to be the same scenario.
There are pastors who need to tough it out and stay until God releases them, instead of when the opposition starts doing their thing. There are others who need to let go of their pastorate and allow God to guide them into a place where they can spend their time teaching the Word of God, rather than babysitting cranky Christians. There are some, like me, who were supposed to resign, keep loving their former parishioners, and hang around town, ministering wherever there is opportunity and following only the direction of the Holy Spirit, without the benefits and banes of church boards, church politics and church salary.
What I most needed at the time of decision was solid leading from God. That’s exactly what I got, through prayer. There is nothing which brings more peace to a heart than surrender to God’s will, followed by clear direction from the Master. When we choose to be guided by the Holy Spirit, He makes sure we get it right. He also brings peace.
Two years have passed since I wrote the portion above. Wouldn’t you know, the same God who led me to resign a pastorate led me to resume pastoral ministry in a new location, following a six-year “sabbatical” from the senior pastorate, peppered with four interim assignments and lots of faith adventures. There is peace in this new assignment, but there was also peace during the “faith years.” The way it works is we have peace with God, no matter which way He takes us.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Obedience to God brings peace with God—always.
Answers for Today, October 27, 2011, originally written 4-06-09
Places, Everyone!
In a jigsaw puzzle, each piece usually is in contact with four other pieces, with occasional exceptions. Not just any piece may be attached; it must be the right one, and properly aligned. To me, this is a good picture of someone who needs to be touched with the love of God. Each person is like a puzzle piece, with a very limited number of folks who “touch” their lives. If they are going to receive the Gospel, chances are it will need to be through one of that small number of people who fit in a place next to them. A lot of people have at least three or four individuals to whom they listen, but some folks only allow one or two people to ever get close to them. If the Gospel penetrates a heart, it will probably be through one of those neighboring pieces in the puzzle.
Who are the people in my life where I am the only piece that fits on that side of them? There are obvious ones, like my wife and children. I need to never forget that! There are also some people God has placed in my life who don’t have anyone else whom they let in that close. There are people whom no one else understands in the way I do. There are folks who have granted me a certain degree of access, who listen to me, who might not listen to very many other people. The biggest impact of my life will probably always be in the realm of those who are “attached” to me in some way. For some of them, no one could take my place.
For some people with whom we don’t seem to “mesh,” it may simply be the wrong approach. Trying a different side of the piece may result in success. When all options have been exhausted, though, it does us no good to attempt to cram ourselves into a situation where we don’t fit. We can take peace in the knowledge that we fit somewhere—just not there.
We’re back to prayer. God has created each one of us to be a valuable, indispensable part of the puzzle. If we ask Him, He will show us where we fit. He’ll let us know what to do. Lives will be changed because of ours. When we allow God to place us where He chooses and we submit to His leading so we’re pointed in the right direction, He will use us to be of tremendous help and blessing to others. No one else can take our place! God didn’t have to make it that way; He just did. He didn’t just want us to think we were important; He wanted us to be important. Places, everyone.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: We may be almost the only individual touching someone’s life.
Answers for Today, October 28, 2011
Occupy Gold Street
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day–and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Revelation 21:21-27
In recent weeks, the news media has often featured coverage of “Occupy Wall Street” and its various spin-off’s in other cities. I was amused to receive a text from my friend, John Rogers, which read, “I’m planning on joining the ‘Occupy Gold Street’ crowd. I just don’t know when.”
Me, too, John.
One day all whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be assembled in the new Jerusalem. The surroundings will be astounding. Yet nothing will compare to the glory of God. Think of it. There will be no need for sun or moon. We will live forever in an environment lit by the glory of God! It makes me think of another phrase I heard used yesterday, by yet another friend, Benji Rodes. In our weekly pastors’ prayer time, I heard Pastor Benji thank God that we are “condemned to victory.” I love it! Because of our Savior, Jesus, we’re “condemned to victory”—we literally cannot lose!
Because of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, whose glory is so awesome it will light the Universe, we are “stuck” with victory over sin and death! We are heading toward an eternity with a God who loves us more than we can comprehend. The place He is preparing for those who love Him back exceeds my imagination’s capacity many times over—and I have a pretty good imagination! Whatever we must endure at the present time is not worth comparing with the glory we will witness and receive, if we simply hang on to Jesus! Do not let go of Him! We in the “Occupy Gold Street” crowd are condemned to victory with a Lord who cannot lose. If we’re with Him, we are automatically on the winning side. What a Savior!
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: We in the “Occupy Gold Street” crowd are condemned to victory.
Answers for Today, October 31, 2011
Always a Bad Idea
“Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.”
Isaiah 46:8-11
God sent the prophet Isaiah to the Israelites during worrisome times. Idolatry on a national scale was on the verge of bringing down their whole country, as God had said would happen, if they chose idols over Him. The idiocy of idol worship is highlighted in the beginning of this chapter. Does it really make sense to worship something you hired someone to make for you, which can’t so much as move or speak? And for this thing you abandon the one true God?!
Sin never does make sense, though, when we come down to it. We have a wonderful, living, loving God who provides for us and redeems us. It makes no sense to reject His love, and it is stupid to trust in ourselves, instead of putting our trust in One able to tell us the end of a matter before its beginning!
I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.
Like the Israelites, we live in worrisome times. The consequences of sin are imminent. It has always been a bad idea to trust in idols. As we turn fearful corners in man’s history, putting our hope in what man has made is dumber than ever! There is a living God who beckons to us, who can state to us precisely how things will end before anything has even begun! He sees it all. Whatever He says will happen, will happen. Why not just trust Him with everything? The idols won’t even know we’re gone.
Dave Ness
The Bottom Line: Trusting in idols instead of God is always a bad idea.
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Servant Connection, P.O. Box 1747, Longview, WA 98632
Servant Connection is a 501(c)3 non-profit ministry dedicated to the spiritual transformation of America.
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Contact Pastor Dave Ness, Servant Connection Founder, at connect@PrayingForAmerica.org
(360) 431-4245
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