What do I look for in a Pastor?

Greetings All,

     Another week, another message!  I so look forward to sending out these gems I glean from my reading of Christian authors.
     This week's "thought"  has to do with the trend in the church to court or win the approval of the movers and shakers in the world by conforming Christian ministry to standards people in the world would find more acceptable.  It addresses the attempt to make ministry more proper, legitimate, credible and well-received in the eyes of the world -- more professional.  And to a degree the thought may seem good. But it must be approached with caution, lest the faith be made into something it was never intended to be - just one among a plethora of other legitimate admirable professions to pursue.

     This thought comes to you from John Piper in one of his less-well-known books, "Brothers, We Are NOT Professionals."   It's a good reminder in a world that often seeks to pressure the Church to conform to its standards. Though written primarily to pastors, it has a message for every Christian. Try to understand what he's saying and I believe you will see the validity of his points.  And at the end, ask yourself: What do I look for in a pastor?  Enjoy.

     "We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry.  The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry.  The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness (Matt. 18:3); there is no professional tenderheartedness (Eph. 4:32); there is no professional panting after God (Ps. 42:1).  But our first business IS to pant after God in prayer. Our business IS to weep over our sins (James 4:9). Is there professional weeping?  Our business IS to strain forward to the holiness of Christ and the prize of the upward calling of God (Phil. 3:14); to pummel our bodies and subdue them lest we be castaways (I Cor. 9:27); to deny ourselves and take up the blood-spattered cross daily (Luke 9:23). How do you carry a cross professionally?  We have been crucified with Christ; yet now we live by faith in the one who loved us and gave Himself up for us (Gal. 2:20).  What is professional faith?

     We are to be filled not with wine but with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). How can you be drunk with Christ professionally? Then, wonder of wonders, we were given the gospel treasure to carry around in clay pots to show that the transcendent power belongs to God (II Cor. 4:7).  Is there a way to be a professional clay pot?  We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus (professionally?) so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested (professionally?) in our bodies (II Cor. 4:9-11). I think God has exhibited us preachers as last of all in the world. We are fools for Christ's sake, but professionals are wise.  We are weak, but professionals are strong.  Professionals are held in honor, we are held in disrepute. We do not try to secure a professional lifestyle, but are ready to hunger and thirst and be ill-clad and homeless. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slaughtered, we try to conciliate; we have become the refuse of the world, the scum of the earth (I Cor. 4:9-13).  Or have we?

     Brothers, we are NOT professionals!  We are outcasts. We are aliens and exiles in the world (I Pet. 2:11).  Our citizenship is in heaven and we wait in eager expectation for the Lord (Phil. 3:20).  You cannot professionalize the love for His appearing without killing it.  And it IS being killed.  The aims of our ministry are eternal and spiritual. They are not shared by any of the professions. It is precisely by the failure to see this that we are dying. "The life-giving preacher," says Richard Cecil, "is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for God, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single to God, and in whom, by the power of God's Spirit, the flesh and the world have been crucified and his ministry is like the generous flood of a life-giving river." 

     ...The professionalization of the ministry is a constant threat to the offense of the Gospel. It is a threat to the profoundly spiritual nature of our work. I have seen it often: the love of professionalism (the desire for equality in status and pay with the world's professionals) kills a man's belief that he is sent by God to save people from hell and make them Christ-exalting, spiritual aliens in this world. If the world sets the agenda for the professional man; God sets the agenda for the spiritual man. The strong wine of Jesus Christ explodes the wineskins of professionalism. There is an infinite difference between the pastor whose heart is set on being a professional and the pastor whose heart is set on being the aroma of Christ -- the fragrance of death to some and eternal life to others (II Cor. 2:15-16).  God deliver us from the professionalizers!

     God, give us tears for our sins.  Forgive us for being so shallow in prayer, so thin in our grasp of holy truths, so content amid perishing neighbors, so empty of passion and earnestness in all our conversations.  Restore to us the childlike joy of our salvation.  Frighten us with the awesome holiness and power of Him who can cast both soul and body into hell (Matt. 10:28). Cause us to hold to the cross with fear and trembling as our hope-filled and offensive tree of life.  Grant us nothing, absolutely nothing, the way the world views it.  May Christ be all in all (Col. 3:11). Banish professionalism from our midst, Oh God, and in its place put passionate prayer, poverty of spirit, hunger for God, rigorous study of holy things, white-hot devotion to Jesus Christ, utter indifference to all material gain, and unremitting labor to rescue the perishing, perfect the saints, and glorify our sovereign Lord. Humble us, O God, under your mighty hand, and let us rise -- not as professionals, but as witnesses and partakers of the sufferings of Christ. In His awesome name. Amen." 

     Some of us (myself included) have lost elements of the passion we once had when we started out in the ministry.  In some cases wisdom has thankfully tempered a lopsided zeal, a blatant omission of duty, or a pride-motivated (rather than Christ-motivated) passion for service.  But in other cases the passion that drove us into the ministry can get driven out of us by the ministry -- sometimes by the expectations placed upon us that we need to be more like the successful worldly professionals around us.

     Yet other times it may even be due to the pastors themselves adopting the subtle worldly idea that ministry is a "profession" rather than a "calling."  One that is to be carried out even if there are no "competitive benefit packages."  Yes, carried out even if it were to mean persecution, the loss of all our possessions, or even our life (Hebrews 11:32-40 / Rev. 2:8-10).  Piper's point is well taken --  professionalization of the ministry can (and has) brought spiritual apathy to the church.  Maybe it's time to consider afresh what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and remember that the call to follow Jesus is a call to serve Him for His sake, at whatever the cost, no matter what comes our way as a result -- something most of the professionals I know would not be inclined to do in their particular professions.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

What do you think?

Greetings All,

     Today I offer you some isolated quotes from four different authors and present them to you with this question: "What do you think?"
     When you read each one what is your initial response?  Do you agree or disagree?  And if so, why?  Are they clear or hard to understand?  I know most everyone is pretty busy, but if you did have a spare moment I would enjoy hearing your thoughts!  And if you do happen to respond, please note which comment you are responding to -- comment #1 by Richard Lovelace, comment #2 by William Carey, comment #3 by John Owen,  or comment #4 B.B. Warfield.  Enjoy.

     “Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives.  Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin, that consciously they see little need for justification (little need for forgiveness and pardon through the substitutionary work of Jesus), although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure…  Many have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine [of justification by faith] but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification, in the Augustinian manner, drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.  Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, and relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.”                 

Richard Lovelace, “Dynamics of Spiritual Life.”

     

     

     On his 70th birthday, pioneer missionary William Carey, who translated the whole Bible (or large parts of it) into 23 Indian dialects and Persian; who wrote a Mahratta-English dictionary, a Bengali-English dictionary, a Bhotanta-English dictionary, and a Sanscrit-English dictionary; and who worked tirelessly as a missionary in India for 41 years (between 1792 and 1833) wrote to one of his sons these words:  “I am this day 70 years old, a monument of divine mercy and goodness, though on a review of my life I find very much for which I ought to be humbled in the dust. My direct and positive sins are innumerable. My negligence in the Lord's work has been great. I have not promoted His cause nor sought His glory and honor as I ought.  Notwithstanding all of this, I am spared till now and am still retained in His work, and I trust I am received into the divine favor through Him (Christ).” 

William Carey

“Believers obey Christ as the one by whom all their obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect and unable to abide in God’s presence. Therefore, they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God... The actual aid and internal operation of the Spirit of God is necessary to produce every holy act of our minds, wills and emotions in every duty whatsoever.  Notwithstanding the power or ability that believers have received by the principle of new life implanted in salvation, they still stand in need of the divine enablement of the Holy Spirit in every single act or duty toward God.”

John Owen

     "It is the conviction that there is nothing in us, or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development which is the cause of our acceptance with God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we initially believe, it is just as true after we have believed and it will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing, nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter regardless of our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior. It is always on His "blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place or that takes a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace…  There is emphasized in this attitude the believer's continued sinfulness in fact and in act and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally, in other words, as a penitent sinner.

     We are sinners, and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners, and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life—a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of how much we deserve just the opposite.  For it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much and, who loving, rejoices much.  “It is a great paradox but glorious truth of Christianity,” says Thomas Adams, “that a good conscience may coexist with a consciousness of evil. Though we can have no satisfaction in ourselves, we may have perfect satisfaction in Christ.”

B. B. Warfield

     

     As I am sure you already know, I am in agreement with all the statements above and believe they accurately reflect the biblical teaching. But if you do not, or feel you would change them in any way, or feel they are out of sync with the message of the Bible I'd love to hear how you disagree or would alter them!

In His Grace, Pastor Jeff 

Testimony of William Grimshaw

Greetings All!

     There comes a time in the life of every believer where they must wrestle with what they truly trust in; where their hope lies, and what the only true object of saving faith is. This week's "thought" is a true account of the one man's journey along that road -- a road that led from misplaced faith and depression, to true faith and joy!
     It is not unusual (at least at the beginning of our life of faith) to have a faith that when tested is found lacking or misplaced. Hopefully this testimony about William Grimshaw's journey from trusting in the wrong thing, to being led by a miraculous event to trust in the only true saving object of faith will be of help to all -- either as a guide that takes you to where you need to be, or a reminder not to stray from there. It comes from "The One Year Book of Christian History" by Michael and Sharon Rusten.  Enjoy.

     "William Grimshaw was born in Lancashire, England, in 1708. He went to Christ's College, Cambridge, intending to enter the ministry. During his third year he fell in with the wrong crowd, becoming, in his own words, "as vile as the worst."  Still, he chose to enter the ministry, finding no incongruity between his sinful lifestyle and his chosen profession.  Ordained in the Church of England in 1732, Grimshaw was assigned a church in West Yorkshire. He married a young widow, but within four years she tragically died, leaving him with two small children.

     Already a troubled soul, Grimshaw was plunged into a deep depression. He sent his children away to be raised by relatives. All he could think about was his own mortality and the necessity of making arrangements for his own funeral... In his written instructions for his funeral he specified: "To attend my funeral I desire that 20 persons be invited (of my next relations and intimatest acquaintances) and be entertained in the following manner: Let 5 quarts of claret (a red wine from Bordeaux) ... be put in a punch bowl and be drunk in wine glasses until it is all gone."

     At this time an itinerant preacher began rebuking Grimshaw for his legalistic view of salvation [a view whereby he encouraged people to trust in their own efforts, works, or aspects of their own performance for their acceptance with God]. He said to Grimshaw, "You are no believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are building on the sand."   Grimshaw tried to avoid the man, but the words "you are building on sand" kept haunting him.  In 1741, while visiting a friend, Grimshaw saw a book on the table and picked it up.  As he opened it, and discovered it was by John Owen, a Puritan theologian, a flash of heat flushed his face. Puzzled, he looked at the fireplace, wondering if the fire had caused his sudden flush of heat.  Opening the book again, he read the title: "The Doctrine of Justification by Faith."  Suddenly a second flash of heat swept over him. Astonished that it happened again, Grimshaw took it as a divine imperative that he was to read the book.

     Taking the book back home, Grimshaw noted in the preface that Owen had written the book for people suffering from the same anguish and distress of soul he was experiencing.  The book confronted the reader with the question of whether he would 'trust in his own personal inherent righteousness (his own efforts and religious or moral performances) or, in full renunciation of it, take to himself the grace of God and the righteousness of Christ alone.' To Grimshaw the choice was clear.  As he would later confide to a friend,  "I was wiling to renounce myself, every degree of fancied merit and ability, and to embrace CHRIST ONLY for my all in all.  O what light and comfort did I now enjoy in my own soul, and what a taste of the pardoning love of God!"

     His ministry immediately changed, and he found peace and joy in his heart as well as his soul. He fell in love with a local girl, married her, and brought his children back home...  He applied for a new parish and moved his family to nearby Haworth, where he ministered powerfully and effectively until his death in 1763 at the age of 55. Under his spiritual leadership the little-known village of Yorkshire became one of the leading centers of the Christian faith in all of England. His funeral was quite different from the one he had planned years before. Vast crowds of loving parishioners followed his coffin to its final resting place. The pastor who spoke summarized the faith of Grimshaw by saying, "Upon Christ's atoning blood and justifying righteousness alone, did EVERY HOPE of his soul's acceptance with God depend" 

     Upon what does your hope rest?  What is the object of your faith? What does your hope or trust for pardon and salvation rest upon?  Is it your efforts at trying to be a "good" person?  Is it a list of accomplishments or a resume of cataloged good works?  Is it a mix of faith in Jesus plus your attempts to be righteous? Here it helps to remember that when it comes to saving faith, Jesus plus anything nullifies Jesus. If you are trusting in anything of your own, you are trusting in you, and thus not fully (or for that matter, not at all) in Jesus.  The Gospel's message is clear: We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.  Add anything into the mix and you disbelieve the Gospel, negate Jesus, will struggle incessantly with emotional highs and lows, find the need to pretend, have a fear of being open, honest and transparent about your sins, wrestle with a sense of of frustration with God and self, fall into occasional depressions, and a lack of assurance of God's forgiveness and complete acceptance.

     Only when one's hope for acceptance with God is in CHRIST ONLY -- only when both eyes are glued on Jesus, instead of one on Jesus and the other on the sin-stained performances of the self -- are they liberated from all those afflicting things to experience peace, joy and release from the weight of burdens too heavy to carry.  John Owen was right in asking: "will you trust in your own personal inherent righteousness [which is always stained by sin and thus unrighteous or unacceptable righteousness], or in full renunciation of it, take to yourself the grace of God and righteousness of CHRIST ALONE."

     Blessed is the person who stops hoping and trusting in their own efforts, and looks instead to Christ alone for their pardon and acceptance with God.  As one who fell into this Grimshaw's mistake, I can tell you from personal experience what a blessed liberation comes as we get our eyes off us, and simply, "fix our eyes (of faith) on Jesus..." (Heb. 12:2).  And please notice it says "eyes" -- that is, both of them!  Not one eye of faith fixed on what you do, and the other one looking to what Jesus did, but BOTH OF THEM fixed on Jesus. For He is the only true object of saving faith, and faith in HIM ALONE is the only means of salvation or remedy for the countless malady's of the soul.

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

How to Walk With God.

Greetings All,

Today's thought comes from the first chapter of a book I read as I was starting out in the ministry.  It was 1987 and the book was written by a man who was having a ministry of great impact at that time in New England -- Everett L. Fullam.  The book is entitled, "How to Walk With God."    Yet, before Fullam tells us how to walk with God (by faith, of course), he points out one necessary detail many overlook in terms of the Being we hope to walk with by faith.  Enjoy.

     "The most distinguishing characteristic of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob -- the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ -- is His holiness. It's not His great power. It's not His infinite wisdom or knowledge. It's His holy character, with no dark spots, no shadows, but rather light through and through. His holiness means a consistency of purpose that is never deflected and a constancy of devotion in continual and eternal covenant.  If we are going to be among those who seek the Lord, we must concern ourselves with His holiness -- and concentrate on responding with a personal holiness that conforms to the will and purpose of God (Hebrews 12:14 / I Peter 1:16). 

     Holiness is not a popular idea today. There is a form of Christianity that is devoid of holiness, an eloquent testimony that its god is not the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, nor is it the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. People fashion gods after their own images and relate to those gods (those idols) on their own terms, because their gods are products of their own self-creation. In the early chapters of his prophecy, Isaiah recorded a marvelous vision of God seated high and lifted up on a throne. Isaiah wrote that God's train filled the temple, and that the pillars of the temple trembled at the presence of God.  He saw the place was filled with smoke and seraphs and angels flew about, singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts" (Isaiah 6:3).  In perceiving this God, the first words that came from his mouth were, "Woe is me, for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."  He had been dealing with the real God, and said: "For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5).

     The only time we can deal with God and not be impressed by the depths of our need is when we fashion a god after our own liking and worship that god. We can deal with that god and remain the same, but if we come into the presence of the living God, we are struck with our own need. If we are unwilling to deal with the things in our lives that are contrary to the purpose of God, then we are not dealing with the holy God. We are dealing with an idol of our own imagining...  Whatever concerns us ultimately, whatever is the controlling dynamic of our life, is our god. For some people it is family, for others its careers, or getting ahead, or reaching the top. Whatever is dominant in our life is our god; and if it is anything other than the Lord God Himself, that's idolatry.  Before we can walk with Him we need to deal with those things. He wants His people to allow Him to be supreme, and so He told Abram to leave his country, his people, and his father's house. He told him to throw away the gods of his forefathers so he could start afresh, so he could learn to serve Him in singular faithfulness...

     God is a God of mercy -- He is a God of the second chance, and the third chance, and the fourth chance, and fifth and sixth and so on. When we come to Him -- even though we've been walking in the wrong direction,  even though we've stopped for a time and have not been moving at all -- if we recognize that we've been disobedient, and confess and deal with our sin by repentance, we can start over again right away.  God's forgiveness cleanses, and the grace of God again begins to flow toward us, and in us, as the joy of our salvation is restored."

     In our day it must be asked if we seek to walk with God as He really is.  That is, if we seek to walk with the God who is revealed in the Bible as being Holy above all else -- Holy, Holy Holy.  Unspeakably Holy and unalterably opposed to sin.  A God who as Fullam points out, calls us to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16).  In many ways this calls us to divest ourselves of some of the common misrepresentations we have about Him in our minds. It means we must be willing to rid ourselves of the images of Him that we've created (or adopted over time) that make us feel more comfortable in dealing with Him.

     In 1987 when Fullam wrote the book, he could say, "Holiness is not a popular idea today."  I would say that is even more the case today.  Yet if we are to walk with God we must not ignore His primary attribute.  For we are told He is, "the Holy One of Israel."   We are told to "glory in His Holy name" (I Chron. 16:10).  Scripture tells us, "our God is Holy," and "His ways are Holy" (Ps. 77:13 / Ps. 99:9).  No other attribute of God is ever repeated three times in rapid succession. God is never said to be, "Love, Love Love," or"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy."  But He is said on three occasions to be, "Holy, Holy, Holy."  And therefore, if we desire to walk with Him, we must seek to grasp -- maybe above all else -- exactly what that means. For if we do not envision a God who is holy, we are not envisioning the God who is.

May we learn to walk with Him in holiness and reverence, Pastor Jeff 

God For The Rest of Us

Greetings All,

     I was tempted to entitle this weeks "thought"  --  "Getting Back to Reaching People the Jesus Way."   I love it because it's a true story and I enjoy true stories far more than fiction.  I like to hear of people who have actually done things, not read fictional scenarios of people doing things!  True stories are more motivationally challenging than fiction!

     
     The following excerpt comes from the book, "God For The Rest of Us" by Vince Antonucci.  It chronicles his call to plant a church in Las Vegas (or "Sin City" as it is commonly called).  It shows his love for "sinners" which others might by-pass, overlook, and even avoid.  That's why I personally found his story(s) inspiring.  And my prayer in sending this out is that his story might inspire you to do what both he and his friend Tommy did. I pray it challenges you to think outside the box in terms of who you seek to reach, and how you seek to reach them with the message of Jesus.  Enjoy.

     "I met Tommy at church. Tommy had recently gotten out of the Air Force. He was in a unit called Air Force Special Operations. Tommy would drop behind enemy lines to prepare bomb sites in wars, and knew how to kill people with his pinky or a rubber spatula.  But those were his Chuck Norris days. Tommy was now in seminary. Like me, he had decided to become a pastor so he could make the biggest difference possible for God.  When Tommy started attending our church, he began by volunteering and joining my small group.   About two years later, during my 12th year at that church, my wife and I felt God leading us to move to Las Vegas to start another church. After announcing it to everyone on a Sunday morning, we got together with our small group.  As we shared our feelings with the group, Tommy had a big smile on his face.  I wanted to tell him he was a jerk for being so happy we were leaving the church, but I was afraid to.  Finally, I stopped and asked, "What are you smiling about?"  Tommy laughed and shocked everyone when he said, "We're coming with you." They did. Tommy, his wife and two children, moved to Las Vegas to help us start the church.  After years of seminary Tommy would finally be a pastor.

     Tommy has a Harley. And when he arrived in Vegas, he realized that there was probably a bunch of rough-and-tumble Harley riders who wouldn't step foot in a church, so he joined a biker club. Well, he said it was a club. It seemed more like a gang to me.  It was a bunch of scary-looking guys who wore leather jackets and rode Harleys.  If they didn't want you in their "club" anymore, they would take your leather jacket and cut it in half.  I'd never heard of a club like that!  So Tommy joined these guys, built relationships with them, and began sharing his faith with them. Eventually he invited the leader of the gang (I mean "club") to our new church. The leader showed up -- big, tall, ornery and with a Wiccan girlfriend.  And eventually he said yes to Jesus, and Tommy baptized him. 

     Tommy also has tattoos. He realized that there were more than 300 tattoo shops in Las Vegas, and more than 1000 tattoo artists, and that close to none of them would set foot in a church. Tommy really developed a heart for these tattoo artists who felt rejected by the church. How do you help tattoo artists to know God is for them?  How do you lead them to experience God's love and move into a relationship with him?  How do you get past the hard, painted exterior so you can tattoo on their hearts the gospel of God's love for those who think they're unfit? I'm not completely sure.  But I know the strategy Jesus used.

     Jesus is God. 

     Jesus was in heaven.

     Jesus wanted humans (sinful ones) to know God is for them, to experience God's love, to move into a relationship with him.

     So Jesus moved to earth and became a human.

     My friend Tommy wanted to connect tattoo artists with God, so he decided to become a tattoo artist! Unbelievable! He had done all that training to become a pastor, and now he would have to do a year-long apprenticeship -- at no pay -- to train to become a tattooer.  He had come to the conclusion that other people could be pastors, but no one else was going to reach those tattoo artists. Tommy started apprenticing at a local shop where he built a relationship with a coworker named Randy.  Pretty soon Randy started coming to our church, and not much later he gave his life to Christ. Tommy baptized him. Even more people from the tattoo shop started showing up at church.

     But, then, there was Johnny.  Johnny was a young tattoo artist, Kate Moss skinny and covered from head to toe in ink.  Of all the people at the shop he probably had the least interest in Tommy, or in Tommy's "spirituality."  Tommy was trying to figure out how he could grow their friendship. One day he asked, "Johnny, what are you into?"  Johnny had to think for a bit. Finally he said, "I don't know, tattoos...and Harry Potter."  Tommy told Johnny that he had never read or seen any Harry Potter stuff, which blew Johnny's mind. Tommy asked how many Harry Potter movies there were.  Johnny proudly told him, "Eight, and I own them all"

     Tommy sighed. He didn't care to watch any of them, but he did care about Johnny.  So he asked, "Do you want to watch them again? I'd watch them with you." Johnny was stoked!  Soon they began their marathon. Whenever there were no clients at the shop, Johnny and Tommy would sneak into the back room and continue the seemingly endless hours of watching Harry Potter. This led, finally, to the day Johnny pushed the pause button and asked Tommy, "Where is Mother Teresa in the Bible?"  That conversation led, finally, to the day Johnny showed up at one of our services. That led, finally, to the day Johnny decided to say yes to Jesus and have Tommy baptize him."

     I find Tommy's example inspiring!  Full of faith and unbelievable love!  A true saint! 

     In fact, his example, like the example of Jesus that he followed, makes me ask myself (and ask you):  What "Johnny's" do we know?  Who can you and I think of that the average church might write off, pass by, or worse yet, avoid?  How far would your love for "sinners," and your desire to reach the type of people Tommy and Jesus reached, cause you to go in sacrificial love, to reach them?  Would we be willing to move our families to a whole new city, state or country?  Change jobs (even when we have a wife and kids) and do a one year apprenticeship at no pay?  Join a biker gang?  Willingly endure 20+ hours of Harry Potter movies? Is the salvation of lost souls that important to us?

     Would we, like Jesus -- who left the unspeakable glories of heaven to endure the agony of the cross --  be willing to make such sacrifices to reach those who might not otherwise be reached?  These are questions we really do need to ask ourselves, lest over time we become far too comfortable in our Churchianity...

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

The Intrusive Word, Preaching to the Unbaptized

Greetings All,

I like stories. I do.  Not fiction, but stories that are true.  And I hope you like them as well, since this week's"thought"  is a story.  A true story.  One that is a little humorous, a little sad, and a little challenging as well. It comes to you from William Willimon and is taken from the preface of his book, "The Intrusive Word, Preaching to the Unbaptized."  Enjoy.


     

     "In my last congregation, we decided that we needed to grow. We voted to launch a program of evangelism... You know what that means. It's the, "We had better go out and get new members of we'll die" syndrome..  Our church had begun a two-decade decline in membership, so we figured that a little church-growth strategy was in order.  We studied a program from our denomination telling us how to get new members. Among other things, the church-growth program advocated a system of door-to-door visitation. So we organized ourselves into groups of two and, on an appointed Sunday afternoon, we set out to visit, and invite people to our church.

     The teams went out, armed with packets of pamphlets describing our congregation, our denomination, and fliers portraying me, the smiling, accessible pastor, inviting people to our church. Each team was given a map with their assigned street. Helen and Gladys were given a map. They were clearly told to go down Summit Drive and to TURN RIGHT. That's what they were told. I heard the team leader tell them, "You go down Summit Drive and turn right. Do you hear me, Helen? That's down Summit Drive and turn right."  But Helen and Gladys, both approaching eighty, after lifetimes of teaching elementary school, were better at giving directions than receiving them. Thy turned left, venturing down into the housing projects to the west of Summit Drive...  [They] proceeded to evangelize the wrong neighborhood, and thereby ran the risk of evangelizing the wrong people.

     Late that afternoon, each team returned to the church to make their reports. Helen and Gladys had only one interested person to report -- a woman named Verleen. Nobody on their spurious route was interested in visiting our church, nobody but Verleen. She lived with her two children in a three-room-apartment in the projects, we were told. Although she had never been to a church in her life, Verleen wanted to visit ours. This is what you get, I said to myself, when you don't follow directions. This is what you get when you won't do what the pastor tells you to do. You get a woman from the projects named Verleen.

The next Sunday, Helen and Gladys proudly presented Verleen at the 11:00 service, along with her two feral-looking children.  Verleen liked the service so much she said that she wanted to attend the Women's Thursday Morning Bible Study.  On Thursday, Verleen appeared, proudly clutching her new Bible, a gift from Helen, the first Bible Verleen had ever seen, much less owned. I was leading the study on the prescribed reading for the coming Sunday, Luke 4, the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. "Have any of you ever been faced with temptation and, with Jesus' help, resisted?" I asked the group after presenting my material. "Have any of you refused some temptation because of your Christian commitment?"  One of the women told about how, just the week before, there  was some confusion in the supermarket checkout line, and before she knew it, she was standing in the parking lot with a loaf of bread she hadn't paid for.  "At first I thought, 'why should I pay for it? They have enough money here as it is.' But then I thought, 'No, you are a Christian.' So I went back in the store and paid them for that loaf of bread."  I made some approving comment.

     It was then that Verleen spoke up. "A couple years ago, I was into cocaine really big. You know what that's like!  You know how that stuff makes you crazy.  Well, anyway, my boyfriend, not the one I got now, the one who was the daddy of my first child, that one, well, we knocked over a gas station one night.  Got two hundred dollars out of it.  It was as simple as taking candy from a baby.  Well, my boyfriend, he says to me, "Let's knock off that Seven-eleven store down on the corner.'  And something in me, it says, 'No, I held up that gas station with you, but I ain't going to hold up no convenience store.'  He beat the hell out of me, but I still said, 'No.'  It felt great to say 'No,' cause that's the only time in my life I ever said 'No' to anything. Made me feel like I was somebody."  Through the stunned silence I managed to mutter, "Well, er, uh, that's resisting temptation. That's sort of what this text is about. And now it's time for our closing prayer."  After I stumbled out of the church parlor and was standing out in the parking lot helping Helen into her Plymouth, she said to me, "You know, I can't wait to get home and get on the phone and invite people to come next Thursday!  Your Bible studies used to be dull. I think I can get a good crowd for this!"...

     Verleen taught me that evangelism is not about getting new members for the church...  Evangelism is not about helping more nice, buttoned-down, middle-class folk like me to find deeper meaning in our lives. Evangelism is a gracious, unmanageable, messy by-product of the intrusions of God into the lives of people.  Verleen was not the only one who intruded into our nice, bourgeois club called Northside United Methodist Church.  She had been brought there, I believe, by Another. Time and again in our life together as a church, just when we get everything all figured out, the pews bolted down, and everyone blissfully adjusted to the status quo, God has intruded, inserting some topsy-turvy-turned life like Verleen, just to remind the baptized that God is large, unimaginable, and full of surprises...  I contend that, through evangelism - through repeated confrontations with the intrusive grace of God - the church can be born again. By letting God use us in God's never-ending pursuit of the unbaptized, the baptized can rediscover what it means for us to be the church. That unlikely gathering of those who are called to sign, signal, and witness to the graciousness of God in a world dying for lack of salvation."

     Willimon dedicated his book to Verleen.  His experience struck me because I have also experienced the blessing of God bringing along very real, transparent, 'don't-yet-know-church-words-or-culture' people like Verleen.  A non-churched addict who had contracted aids through sharing needles, and was initially dating a prostitute. A man I had the privilege of baptizing him before he passed.

     Another was a young lady, who after much prodding by a friend, finally came to our church in Honduras in an expensive car she had borrowed from a friend.  She parked on the steep hill in front of the church, and during the service the emergency brake let loose. One of the greeters interrupted the service to ask if anyone owned a grey Mercedes, because it had just rolled down the hill into a brick wall. At that, the lady jumped up from her seat, and in front of everyone (in a very loud voice) blurted out: "Oh ___!"  And, despite the initially stunned faces, the church elders were so happy she had joined with us, they paid for the repairs.

     Another time, a gentleman who struggled with alcohol (and had previously gotten into a fight with his wife in our front yard!) called us to come down to his house because he'd "found Jesus."  When we arrived at his house, he was watching a VHS (some of you remember what those are) of a Bill Gaither Concert.  And at one point in the concert, he was so moved by joy (I can't remember the song), that he leaped up where he was standing, and jumped so high, that his head hit the glass globe of a hanging light and shattered it all over him and the floor!  And that doesn't even include the young new-to-church ex-nightclub dancer, who offered a prayer request during the service with such descriptive language that some of the older folk almost turned pale from shock!

     You see, sometimes Christians can forget that Jesus' band of disciples were not all moral, straight-laced, upstanding, well-educated, middle-class, "grew-up-in-church-every-week" type people.  Some came from the other side of the tracks.  Some shocked those who were the self-appointed guardians of the religious status-quo.  It's supposed to be that way. In fact, if the Verleen's of the world are not attracted to our churches, or feeling welcomed there, we are doing something wrong. For as we see in the gospels, sinners (the really bad ones like Zealots, prostitutes and tax collectors) were attracted to Jesus, felt loved by Jesus, did not feel judged by Jesus, and wanted to be around Jesus. It's something that should be true of us as well if we are Christians (or as the word means, "little Christ's"). Dare we pray for more gracious intrusions from people like Verleen?

Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff