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Christian Post: CHRISTIANITY IS GROWING FASTER THAN AT ANY TIME IN HISTORY – EXCEPT IN THE WEST

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CHRISTIANITY IS GROWING FASTER THAN AT ANY TIME IN HISTORY – EXCEPT IN THE WEST

Josh Laxton: Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 2

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Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 2

True church growth transfers people from the domain of darkness into the glorious light of Christ.
JOSH LAXTON

Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 2

Image: Photo by Mat Botsford on Unsplash

On Thursday, we looked at the first three shifts to experience transformation in our churches. Today, I’ll share the final three.

 

Shift 4: The church must make the shift from swapping members to having the primary growth strategy of going after people who do not yet belong

This seems to be where most churches struggle. According to Rick Richardson’s research, only 40 percent of the churches in America are growing. However, only 10 percent of these churches are experience growth through conversion. That means the other 30 percent of churches that grow are doing so by swapping members. [See his book, You Found Me.]

Don’t misunderstand me here. It’s not like I’m against transferring from one church to another. I realize there are many good reasons to transfer church membership. Other church leaders have written some good articles about this.

What I am suggesting here is for churches to stop relying and [even] celebrating “growth” when the growth has been predominantly through transfer. The reality is, transfer growth is inflated growth. It’s not like transfer growth pushes back darkness. True church growth transfers people from the domain of darkness into the glorious light of Christ.

If we were honest, much transfer growth happens with disgruntled members over tertiary or preferential issues. And rather than sit down to talk about the issue, they leave without notice.

If I had to guess, there are a lot of serial transfer memberships, because if you leave one church because of issues, it is only a matter of time before you leave another church. Why? Because all churches have issues! All churches are made up of imperfect people being perfected into the image of Christ. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before church leaders and churches either make a mistake or do something that doesn’t please or cater to everyone.

When churches make it a priority to go primarily after those who have yet to belong—those who are far from Jesus–they will find the joy and freedom that a new believer brings to congregational life because they tend to focus and feast on the gospel rather than focus and give feedback on what they like and don’t like.

Shift 5: Members need to shift the way they see the church from a transactional organization to a familial relationship

It seems that brand loyalty has largely disappeared in today’s culture. Today consumers hunt for the best deals, the most amazing experiences, and the greatest entertainment. It’s a cut-throat world competing for opinionated consumers.

 

A bad experience, sub-par food, terrible service, or poor-quality can easily influence a customer never to return again. Why? The relationship between customer and institution (or organization) is transactional.

Tim Keller in his book on marriage distinguishes between a contractional (transactional) view of marriage verses a covenant view. In a contractional marriage, we will find it difficult to commit to anything because we will always fear that we are potentially missing out on something better—especially when our current commitments are not meeting our desires and expectations. Keller then remarks, “consumer relationships operate out of a mindset that essentially says, ‘Adjust to me, or I’m out of here’” (The Meaning of Marriage-Study 2).

On the other hand, a covenant view of marriage operates “out of the Biblical mindset that states, ‘I will adjust to you, and I’m not going anywhere.’ In a covenant relationship, my needs are not as important to me as the good of the relationship.” (The Meaning of Marriage-Study 2).

I highlight what Keller says about marriage, because as believers we have been saved by Christ and have entered into a covenant with him. While this covenant with Christ may have a personal nature to it, the covenant that Christ solidified by His death and resurrection is corporate with God’s people—His church. Therefore, the nature of the New Testament covenant is familial.

Joseph Hellerman, in his book When the Church was a Family, stresses the notion that the church should view herself more as a “family.” The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith” (Gal .6:10).

To understand such truth, Hellerman unpacks how the ancient Near East understood family. He notes that in the New Testament world:

  • The group took priority over the individual.
  • A person’s most important group was his blood family.
  • the closest family bond was not the bond of marriage. It was the bond between siblings. (p. 50, Kindle Edition)

I share all of this because bodies of believers that want to shift from a country club to a commissioned church must start seeing each other as family. Sure, all families have dysfunction—some more serious than others.

However, God didn’t design His family to have contractional or transactional relationships that center around the individual’s needs or desires, but on the covenantal foundation of Jesus’ blood and life that unites [diverse] individuals together as an agape family.

Therefore, rather than walking out at the first sign of trouble or disappointment—only to go down the street to another “club”—brothers and sisters should be able to come together in Christ’s love and grace and work out differences—especially when most differences in churches are tertiary and preferential.

Shift 6: Church leadership will need to shift from being customer service representatives to becoming shepherds that defend the essence of the church

Complaints (or complainers) aren’t new to God-appointed leaders. In fact, Moses knew them all too well. However, how leaders engage and deal with complainers can either propel or prohibit the mission of God through His people.

In our culture, business and organizations are customer-centric, which means they strive to create a positive experience for the customer by what they offer and how they offer it—just like a country club. And if a customer has a bad experience, good consumer-centered businesses go into damage control mode trying to diffuse the negativity, anger, or hostility of the customer.

One of the problems today in the American church is that many want church done their way, as if church is a Burger King. And what typically happens is that the complaints of members fall onto the ears of church leaders who mean well but want everyone to be happy and content—they want calm and peace.

As a result, there is vision drift from the mission of God because it has been thwarted by the voices of the vocal minority. Peace at the cost of God’s mission isn’t peace, but disobedience. When leaders try and make everyone in church a winner, God becomes the loser.

I want to tread carefully here, so not to make people think I don’t care about church members. I’m a shepherd at heart and by call. I love the church. However, churches are to be sheep-focused, mission-oriented, and Christ-centered.

As a result, the goal of church leaders isn’t to make church people happy, it is to drive them to be more conformed into Christ’s image. And the more conformed one is in the image of Jesus, the more postured for and towards the world they will be.

This doesn’t mean church leaders (and churches) don’t make mistakes or mishandle situations that inflame emotions or tensions. It’s not to dismiss how many church leaders fail to communicate effectively in making decisions—which is something that stirs up negative emotions.

 

The point is that church leaders who serve more as customer service representatives do the church (and thus the members) a disservice in confusing them as to the essence of the church. They are there to mobilize God’s people to be on mission as they are conformed more into the image of Jesus, not to make sure they have an awesome religious experience.

The most loving (and missional) thing church leaders can do with complainers and naysayers is to help them see the biblical vision of a God-breathed commissioned church compared to a personal preferred vision of a self-absorbed country club church.

In closing, I pray that the church in the West would be a missional vehicle that mobilizes believers to reflect the glory of God by living selfless lives postured for and towards the world as they reflect the already but not yet kingdom.

When churches do this, they live as salt and light in a world that is both in decay and darkness. To enact this missional vision will require many American churches to make the shift from a country club to a commissioned church mindset.

Josh Laxton currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Billy Graham Center, Lausanne North American Coordinator at Wheaton College, and a co-host of the podcast Living in the Land of Oz. He has a Ph.D. in North American Missiology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Josh Laxton- Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 1

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This is a great article on transforming churches from a country club mentality to a true missional expression of the Body of Christ,

Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 1

Paul knew that if people became the central focus of the church, the church would be conformed into the image of people not the image of Christ.
JOSH LAXTON

Moving from a Country Club to a Commissioned Church, Part 1

Image: Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash

Recently, I had a two-part series (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here) describing features of a church being more like a country club. The sober reality is many churches fit the bill when it comes to embodying characteristics of a country club. However, very few pastors, leaders, or members want to admit it.

 
 

Ed Stetzer on Vimeo

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I get why it’s hard to admit that your church has more in common with a country club down the street than the kind of church Christ birthed. Maybe we think it reflects poorly on our leadership. Maybe we don’t want to admit that what we value with our lips, we don’t value with our lives—like evangelism. Maybe it would be an indictment against us as people who claim to live by “the book,” only to find that we are dying by our governing by-laws.

While the previous posts were more diagnostic, I want these two posts to be more prescriptive and restorative. Why? Because there is hope for churches that have more in common with country clubs than the kind of church Christ birthed.

Country club churches can become once again Christ’s commissioned church. However, to experience this transformation, churches—their leaders and members—will have to make, at the very least, the following six shifts.

Shift 1: The church must make the shift from pleasing people to pleasing God.

We live in a consumeristic culture, where people are accustomed to playing the role of a customer. As a result, they are conditioned to see every organization revolving around their needs. However, the church was not birthed to cater to, nor please, people; the church was birthed to advance the mission of God.

Paul puts it this way to the churches in Galatia, “For am I now trying to persuade people or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).

Paul’s not saying that we aren’t to serve people. He is saying that ultimately our call and goal is to serve and thus please Christ. Paul knew that if people became the central focus of the church, the church would be conformed into the image of people not the image of Christ.

Which is why Paul warned Timothy about how people, in the last days, will be “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…” (2 Tim .3:1–4).

 

Could you imagine what would happen to a church if such people had their way? Paul did. He knew there would come a time when people would “not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, [would] multiply teachers for themselves because they [want] to hear what they want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3).

It would bring great joy to my heart if church members were more concerned about what made God happy rather than voice complaints about what didn’t make them happy.

To make this shift from pleasing people to pleasing God will require great humility and sacrifice. However, in the end, it will prove well worth it since God never promised to remove lamp stands that displayed His glory.

Shift 2: Members need to make the shift from seeing their tithes as membership dues to mission fuel

I cannot tell you how many times I ran into members over the years that saw their tithes and offerings as membership dues they believed entitled them to power and sway in the church.

Years ago, in one of the church’s I pastored, we were talking about selling a baby grand piano and going with an electronic keyboard that would give us more versatility and more room on the stage. But I remember this one member got so upset given that she helped pay for that piano years earlier. As a result, she felt entitled for the church to keep the piano—and to make sure of that she began forming a group that would support her endeavor.

I’ve also experienced many occasions where members withheld their tithes because they didn’t like the changes happening in the church. In other words, they boycotted the church through the withholding of their tithes and offerings—something a country club member would do.

While I am all for being wise stewards of people’s money, having accountability for using the financial resources of the church, and leading in a trustworthy manner, members must realize that their money isn’t financial dues that entitle them to ecclesial power.

They don’t give in order to have more voice, more ownership, or more sway in the church. They give because God gave first. They give because they are never more like Jesus than when they give. They give because God uses their stewardship to advance His mission through His church.

Money should never be used as a weapon to wield or a tool to grab power in Christ’s church; money should always be used and seen as a tool to advance the mission of God. Commissioned churches understand this.

Shift 3: Members need to make the shift from being served to serving

In a country club, members pay for a service whereby they seek to be served rather than serve. However, in a commissioned church, members emulate their King and Savior who both uttered and exemplified the following phrase, “For the Son of Man came not to be serve but to serve and give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45.

Let me illustrate this shift. If you’re a pastor, you know that one of the most difficult areas to recruit volunteers is in the _______________? Children’s ministry. If you’re a pastor, you also know that one of the most important areas for young families today when choosing and attending a church is? Bingo… Children’s ministry.

This area becomes a great litmus test for whether a church can make the shift from country club to commissioned church. For some reason people want to express that God hasn’t called them into children’s ministry.

But I don’t buy it, especially those adults with children. I tell adults with children that God has called them into children’s ministry. You know how I know? Because God gave them kids. And if God gave them kids, then He has called them into children’s ministry.

Another example of this shift would be to stop seeing pastors (and church staff) as hired hands who work for the church and start seeing them as servant leaders who mobilize the church to do the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12).

I tell believers that there are three areas every member should serve the church. First, they should serve in areas of necessity. Areas of necessity could be the children’s, youth, or greeter ministry. Areas of nurturing are the small group areas where care, concern, and support are expressed towards one another. And then natural areas are those areas where people exercise their specific gifts and skill set to build up the church.

In short, commissioned churches are filled with members ready and eager to serve rather than waiting to be served.

Tomorrow, I’ll share the last three shifts that need to take place to transition a country club church to a commissioned church.

Josh Laxton currently serves as the Assistant Director of the Billy Graham Center, Lausanne North American Coordinator at Wheaton College, and a co-host of the podcast Living in the Land of Oz. He has a Ph.D. in North American Missiology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Another One Bites The Dust

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Marty Sampson, a well respected Hillsong musician recently announced in social media that he has either lost or is losing his faith. The original posts have been deleted, so it’s hard to find the exact message.

I’m not here to condemn anyone, but there is a long list of ministry fatalities in Hillsong and other mega churches.

I suspect that most mega churches are great leadership raising machines that spit out amazing people, but it seems the fatalities are also amazing. My observation from attending years of Hillsong conferences was that there is a huge amount of pressure put on people to perform to a high level of excellence. Some thrive, and others crash and burn.

Looking through Scripture I don’t see that model being promoted anywhere. There is pressure, but the pressure is from persecution rather than from driven leadership.

In fact, Jesus demonstrates a very laid back approach. Jesus made this very laid back invitation

Matthew 11:28-30 
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I feel that the church in many places has lost track of something important: our primary task is to love God and love people. If only we can love extravagantly, then many of the issues that come from burnout, disappointment and unrealistic expectations could be headed off.

I have been reflecting a lot on the parable of the lost son. It seems to me that Jesus is trying to show us a God who loves us abundantly (prodigally) despite our poor performance. If only we can get our heads around that kind of love and start living from that place.

The trouble with love is that it takes time to pursue. Loving God is more than a 5 minute devotional. Loving people means investing ourselves into them, and that takes time, empathy and sometimes money. In our culture, time is too precious a commodity that we are reluctant to give it away.

This isn’t just a city phenomenon. Country people can often feel pressured by long commutes or the pressures of surviving in drought.

Churches must develop a culture of love, investing in solid relationships that strengthen over decades. We have found cell church is an effective way of doing this- combining large group and small group worship. The advantage of cell church is that people are weekly encouraging each other to go deeper in their walk with the Lord and to share the gospel in little ways as a part of normal discipleship.

If any of the big name falling away christians were to turn up in our church, we would encourage them into a cell group and help them to find their way back to Jesus. We would find ways of loving them until they can see Jesus again. It isn’t a formula or a process, just what Jesus calls the church to do.

Inertia Is A Good Thing, Really

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A minor hiccup in power supply threw the south east of England into an unplanned “Earth Hour.” And it was all caused by wind generators.

Just before the blackout, the National Grid reported that fully 47.6% of the nation’s power was being generated by wind. Suddenly two small generators- one wind and the other gas- went offline. These generators account for less than 3% of power demand.

Immediately, the grid frequency fell from 50 Hz to 48.9 Hz and the power grid shut down to protect itself.

What is this Hz thing? Well, electricity mains systems use alternating current which in simple terms means that the electrons that flow to give us power are oscillating backwards and forwards at 50 times per second. If the frequency changes by a significant amount the whole grid can become unstable. In order to protect transformers etc, there are automatic switches that shutdown parts of the grid when the frequency gets out of a very narrow range.

This is what happened in London, and in South Australia three years ago.

In a traditional coal fired power system, electricity is produced by forcing high pressure steam past enormous turbines, which weight 200-800 tonnes. They are huge things and, once started, maintain a very steady speed even if there are changes in the rate of steam flow. Their inertia keeps the whole grid stable, so that if something goes wrong somewhere else, they still keep pumping out their power at 50 Hz.

But when smaller, more dispersed power generators dominate the grid, there is much less inertia to keep the power supply stable and things turn to custard very quickly.

The giant battery in South Australia is not there to keep the quantity of power flowing- it only has enough storage for a few minutes of power demand. It’s main role is to keep the frequency stable. Now power companies have to pay the battery for a service that coal powered generators provide for free- that’s progress.

H/T to Jo Nova for this analysis

All of this talk of grid stability and inertia made me think of how unstable our society has become, particularly over the last decade. What was once unthinkable has become normal, and it seems that every week there is some new perversion being promoted. Pornography is everywhere, families are disintegrating, and an epidemic of fatherlessness is being played out in mass shootings, suicide and violence.

The reason for this, I believe, is that we have bought into the lies of individualism. People think they have the right to do whatever they like, to indulge whatever desires and whims they might have, and all without any consequences.

Individualism has been around for a long time. Some people trace it back to the New Testament and the idea that ever single person is loved by God.

Previous generations had the church as the equivalent of the steam turbine. The morality and ethical standards of christianity have been taught, and continue to be taught, unchanging through the centuries. The word goes out steadily year after year, Sunday by Sunday, moderating the wild impulses of human flesh.

Then in the 1970’s people stopped going to church.It was deemed to be irrelevant and oppressive. People decided they could set their own moral codes. Everyone can do what they like without reference to anyone else, and it is all coming unravelled.

Without the steady inertia of the church, the moral grid of the nation has slowly turned to custard. The lights are going out, and we call it progress,

 Bill Tenny-Brittian: The Future Of Your Church

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The Future Of Your ChurchBy |July 24th, 2019|0 Comments

Is the future of your sitting in your pews?

Maybe

… but probably not.

The future of your church isn’t the legacy generation. Your seniors, whether Boomers or Builders, have largely brought your church to where it is – for better or worse. But they won’t be around in a few years, most haven’t invited anyone to join them for worship in months or years. Your legacy generations are definitively not the future of your church.

And as hard as it is to swallow, the future of your church isn’t the youth. We know that at best 60 percent of them will leave the church forever at the first possible opportunity for the them to quit. And the 40 percent who remain involved in the church will almost certainly be involved in some other church in some other city. The youth may be the future of somebody’s church, but they’re not the future of your church.

Youth may be the future of somebody’s church, but they’re not the future of your church.
 
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The same goes for your children … children turn into youth who largely turn away from the church.

That pretty much leaves your young adults. It’s true that young adults are the hope and the future of the church. They’re the ones who buy houses and invest in the community, including their church. But are they the future of your church?

Not if they’ve been there for more than a year.

Young adults who’ve been members of your congregation for twelve months or more are unlikely to invite anyone into the congregation on a consistent basis (or even at all). Most of them have already invited “everyone” they know and they’ve lost their zeal for inviting. Which is to say, young adults may be the future of the church, but not if they’re your longer term members.

All that’s to say that the future of your church, should you plan on your church being around a decade or so from now, is in the hands of those who aren’t there yet …

What are you doing to connect future members to your church?

Mario Murillo: :”Still thinks its a game”

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The Democrats have made it plain: free healthcare for illegals paid for by you. They are not hiding anything. They want the right to kill newborns. They will force the church to stop teaching God’s word on sexual immorality. They will remake America. We see their true colors. They couldn’t be any clearer.

What I don’t get, is how the American church can still think this is all a game.

Because of man, and nature—planet Earth is ready to explode—not from global warming but from moral cooling.  Matthew 24:12 “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”

Meanwhile, the church—like passengers partying on the deck of the Titanic—pats herself on the back for what she considers her ‘big events.’

Nothing has stopped America’s headlong depravity. Nothing has even slowed it down. We have spent more money, more time, and more talent than ever—yet the church never asks, “Why do we keep doing things that don’t work?” Why can’t we impact culture?”

When the church:           

-Feeds a powerless Gospel to a sick nation, a Gospel that does not deliver us from evil, but even worse, makes those who have already been converted still weaker, the church must think it is a game.

-When the church no longer views the works of Satan as the enemy, but believes the worst thing that can happen is to have an unsuccessful life—the church is just playing a game.  The only solution is a return to the Bible.  The Bible needs to set fire to our sermons.

Sadly, even many of my Spirit-filled acquaintances are also playing games.  Facebook is like a Petri dish for Pentecostals.  In one compressed medium you witness the banal bacteria that excite Charismatics today.

Read the rest here

Stephen McAlpine: Exile, Evangelism and Ebed-Melech

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Steven McAlpine brings glimmers of hope for the church in an age of increasing hostility.

Exile, Evangelism and Ebed-Melech

Screen Shot 2018-10-04 at 9.41.33 am.png

While much of the talk is of bunkering down in the face of a coming cultural exile for the traditional church, we might just be in for a surprising gospel harvest at the same time.

Not a harvest instead of exile.

Nor in spite of.

But because of.

Amidst the scandals of rotten in churches that say one thing and do another; amidst the scandalon of the gospel proving to be too much for denominations seeking culture relevance, there’s a growing and genuine interest in the gospel that is translating to people actually becoming Christian.

And they’re not doing so because it’s convenient, or because all their friends are rushing to sign up and they’re getting caught in the hype, or because the media has a love-in with the church.  In fact it’s quite the opposite. To remain a Christian today is quite a challenge in the West.  To become one, well that’s another thing altogether.

Yet that is what I am seeing.  That’s what our network at Providence is seeing, as Rory Shiner reports on The Gospel Coalition site.

In our small church alone we have seen several people become Christian this past few months; one a long time church attendee who was not converted. Another one who was saved out of the blue from an atheist background after starting out on a spiritual search through reading the book of Numbers of all things!

And about five or six young people asking us for baptism.  And all in the face of a peer group outside the church that is increasingly suspicious – hostile even – towards their faith.

Yes I do think we’re headed towards cultural exile at a rate of knots.  Yes I do think that the Benedict Option is a good long term strategy.  But in the midst of all of that God is still saving people, still carrying out his intentions to bless the whole world through the covenant made with Abraham and completed in Christ.

It reminds me of the story of Ebed-Melech in the dark, desperate days of exile and ruin for Jerusalem.  Babylon is in the process of dismantling the city, the temple and God’s people.  More than that, it seems like God is in the process of dismantling His promises to bless Israel and the whole world through her.

And Jeremiah, the weeping, mournful prophet who vainly calls God’s people to turn from their desperate attempts to find security in anyone but God in the midst of it all, is shunned and disdained.  Eventually he’s thrown into a well.  Left to die.

And then we read this in Jeremiah 38:

When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate—  Ebed-melech went from the king’s house and said to the king,  “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”  Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, “Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”  So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe in the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes.  Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.” Jeremiah did so. 13 Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

Did you get the idea that Ebed-Melech was an Ethiopian?  It reminds us three times.  Oh, and a eunuch as well.  He’s not ticking too many of the boxes is he?

Yet right at the nadir of Israel’s life, God, through this Ethiopian eunuch, points to the fact that His salvation purposes of blessing the whole world through Abraham’s descendants are still at work.

Someone not of Israel living as a true Israelite, and indeed saving an Israelite from certain death from the hands of unregenerate Israel.

A prototype Good Samaritan perhaps, while Jeremiah’s countrymen not only walk by on the other side, but inflict his wounds.

And  a precursor to another Ethiopian eunuch on the other side of the cross, who hears the good news about Jesus from Philip the evangelist, even in the midst of persecution of God’s people by faithless Jerusalem leaders once again.

In Jeremiah 39, when things have gotten worse in the capital, we read this:

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guard:  “Go, and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.  For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord.’”

Here is a true Israelite, as Paul would say in Romans 6.  One circumcised of heart, not just body.   Ebed- Melech finds salvation in God, even as the city is about the be handed over to the Babylonians one final time, and exile proper kicks in.

It’s a gospel moment.  Ebed-Melech is not commended by God for taking Jeremiah out of the well, but for trusting in the LORD.  It was his trust in the LORD, in fact, that led him to taking Jeremiah out of the well.  Here is a picture – albeit a small, fractured picture, of the nations putting their trust in Israel’s God, even in horrendous times, with a faltering witness from Israel, and a looming exile in Babylon.

So both my experience and my theology are demonstrating that something good is going on, not instead of something difficult (a cultural exile will indeed be hard for many Christians), not in spite of something difficult (as if this is pattern is an upset for the books), but because of it of it.

We’ve talked a lot about how God is doing a purifying work in these hard, secular times, burning off some of the dross.  We’ve talked about how this thing has not bottomed out, and that there’s still a falling away to come for many who love the praise of humans more than the praise of God.  We’ve talked about how some of our church growth is simply because people are swimming away from sinking life boats and scrambling on to ours.

And that’s all true.

But at the same time God appears to be taking away, He’s also adding.  Adding people to His kingdom His way.  And many of them are looking at the difficulties that the gospel will bring to their lives, and deciding that for the joy set before them it will be worth it.

I’m looking forward to meeting Ebed-Melech in the new creation. For he is a prototype of all Gentiles such as I, who although not “cut off” physically, were indeed cut off spiritually from the hope of God, but who through Christ are being brought in at a surprisingly healthy rate of knots, despite our present cultural exilic circumstances.

Francis Chan: Stop Treating the Book of Acts Like Hyperbole

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From Christianity Today

Francis Chan: Stop Treating the Book of Acts Like Hyperbole

The former megachurch pastor asks today’s churches to measure their practices against the New Testament standard.
INTERVIEW BY RACHAEL STARKE| SEPTEMBER 20, 2018
Francis Chan: Stop Treating the Book of Acts Like Hyperbole

Image: Daley Hake

Eight years ago, Francis Chan resigned as senior pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California—the church he helped grow from 30 people gathered in a living room to a multimillion-dollar ministry. He wasn’t burned out. There was no disqualifying moral failure. He’d simply grown convicted over his challenges in steering a large ministry in accordance with biblical values.

 
 
Letters to the Church
Letters to the Church

FRANCIS CHAN
David C. Cook
2018-09-01
224 pp., $10.19

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Chan sold his house and spent a year traveling through Southeast Asia, visiting churches and interacting with church leaders. Returning to California, he began planting churches in his home and the homes of others in his San Francisco neighborhood. His latest book, Letters to the Church, is a pastoral call for American churches to consider whether their values and practices are consistent with Scripture. Writer and fellow Bay-area resident Rachael Starke spoke with Chan about the blessings that come from recommitting to church life as God designed it.

Your book exhorts churches to recommit to Acts 2 practices like extended prayer, radical love and service, and intimate fellowship within the home. But many of these run counter to the digitized lives we live today, especially in places like San Francisco. How have revolutions in technology influenced American church practices and habits?

Technology is really about speed: doing everything faster and with less effort. We’re tempted to want the church to be the same way—let me accomplish what I want in as little time as possible. But the blessing is going to come from the work itself, from the hard work you do to love and serve one another. What could be greater than that?

Many books about church ministry emphasize adults ministering to kids. But you propose some intriguing ideas about children serving the church. What does that look like?

My kids have all these “aunts and uncles” who are really just brothers and sisters in Christ. Right now my older kids are taking my younger kids and others and discipling them. We love each other’s kids: Someone’s always sleeping over at my place, or my kids are sleeping over somewhere else.

When we gather, my kids are involved in leading the music—playing instruments and singing. They share what they’re learning in their Bible reading. During one gathering, my 12-year-old son talked about leading his friend to the Lord; this friend “has two dads” and isn’t allowed to come to church. He talked about how he’s the only discipler his friend, this new young believer, can have right now. On another occasion, they invited their science teacher to our gathering. They convict the room with their obedience more than I ever could.

 

If Francis Chan leads someone to the Lord, it’s kind of expected. But when my seven-year-old has been praying for her friend for weeks or months, and then that friend ends up in our house gathering, that’s a beautiful thing.

You challenge churches to test their traditions and practices against the ones God actually prescribes in the Bible. What would you say to those who regard those traditions as contemporary means for accomplishing biblical ends?

There is a sense in which all things are permissible. What I’m saying is, let’s obey the commands first. It may be that you’ve spent so much time on what’s permissible, you’ve neglected what’s actually commanded.

Let’s also consider the byproduct of doing some things that seem harmless. Sometimes good things happen and we don’t consider the cost, whether it’s money spent or time invested. As a young pastor back in the ’90s, I remember going to this church growth event, a Christmas musical. What if the people of that church had spent those hours actually talking to their neighbors? Some churches in America don’t believe they can do discipleship or evangelism. But in countries like China and India, they fully expect they can do it, and it’s done.

American Christians are increasingly paying attention to so-called justice issues, like alleviating suffering or fighting religious persecution at home and overseas. But your book doesn’t mention these issues in much depth. Why not?

When I came back from Africa the first time, I was obsessed with the people there who were starving and suffering. I was so in love with the Sudanese refugees, and I wanted to learn as much as I could about issues affecting them, like human trafficking. Those were all good and necessary, and I’m grateful for how God was at work through those efforts. But I didn’t have Christ at the center.

There has to be a way to care about suffering and injustice that doesn’t elevate them above Christ himself. Do I hear people who call themselves Christians talk like Paul does in Philippians 3—that everything else is “garbage” compared with Christ (v. 8)? Loving Jesus has to be central. I wasn’t trying to avoid justice issues in the book as much as I was trying to emphasize what the Bible itself emphasizes above all.

In many quarters, bivocational ministry is viewed, at best, as a necessary compromise when there isn’t enough money to hire a full-time pastor. Why have you made this model a hallmark of your churches?

I don’t say it’s the only way; if I did, I’d be in sin. There’s certainly biblical precedent for paying Christian workers. I only advocate bivocational ministry because I’ve seen the benefits. Right now, we have around 40 pastors, representing all walks of life—a cop, a school teacher, a tech guy, a restaurant worker, and a guy who was homeless two years ago. These are my leaders. When people see them, they think, “I have no excuse for not making disciples.”

Adjusting to new paradigms for church life is hard; you mention a person in your congregation who compared it to switching from figure skating to competitive hockey. How should those in leadership positions—or those sitting in the pews—initiate conversations about making big changes?

I wrote an addendum titled “Surviving Arrogance” to address this exact issue. I could see people marching into their pastor’s office and saying, “We’re screwed up and Francis Chan says so.” There’s a humble way to raise these issues and a not so humble way.

When I was at Cornerstone, I wanted to change everything overnight. I was trying to do it through a sermon or a change in programs. But discipleship takes time. I thought if I preached this one sermon it would change everything right away. This work takes a long time and lots of effort.

I hope that people won’t be attracted by the numbers. I’m hoping that new leaders will arise who will start their own churches. I’m hoping that some existing leaders will step away because they see sin in their lives and take some time to get their walk right. But I’m also hoping that people will read the book and have a new sense of hope—that the things I’m writing about are for today just as much as they were for the early church. I want them to stop looking at passages in Acts like they’re hyperbole instead of the actual Word of God.

Some church leaders are leading out of arrogance, but others are scared to look foolish or make a mistake. That’s their own pride or fear of failure at work. For those who are arrogant, I hope this book encourages them to humble themselves by leaving. But for those who are pridefully afraid of failing, I hope this book encourages them to humble themselves by doing—stepping out in faith and obedience.

To the Outrageously Fabulous Parents with Your Kids in Church: I Salute You

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You Are Fabulous

To all the parents out there: You are fabulous. Yes, you! I guarantee you that you’re better at raising kids than you often think you are. And all you’re investing in those little humans is already at work in them. This is true even on those days (yes, even those days), when there isn’t even a glimmer of confirmation of that fact.

I see you showing up to church with your arms full. In one hand, the snack bag, a tiny hand in the other and the diaper bag slung over one shoulder. And off you jog after your other little one who’s charging across the parking lot, while shouting back to your oldest, still dawdling, “Lock the car when you get out!”

I know you’re already tired from last night’s less-than-luxurious night of sleep. Yesterday, you were probably at a tournament for your oldest before rushing over to that afternoon swim party.

And, yet, you’re here.

And even when you’re not here…we still think you’re fabulous. We all know that church attendance is not what it was back in the day, and we’re not bemoaning that. Really. We get it. This life stuff…it’s hard. And busy. And filled with many wonderful opportunities for children and youth. And with the schedule of so many families today, sometimes what a family needs more than anything is the chance to just be together on a Sunday morning.

But when you are able to make it to worship, we know the question you might be asking as you pull into the church parking lot…

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“Is It Worth It?!”

You probably wonder if it’s worth it. Does it really matter that you show up at church on Sunday morning? Is it making a difference to anyone that you scramble to get everyone dressed and out the door to be here?

Parenting is hard. It’s so rich and beautiful, lovely and heart-expanding. It’s more than any of us ever imagined it would be. More joyous, more disappointing, more invigorating and more demanding.

And I’m here to tell you that in the midst of all the more-ness of parenting, I’m in awe of you. I don’t need to know you. If you’re the parent who’s reading a blog about having kids in church, I can definitively say I am in awe of you.

And when you invest in having your kids in church – it matters.

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Kids in Church Matters

Kids in church matters to the congregation.

Your family brings with it the gift of your children’s voices. From the sweet sound of their singing to their unassuming (sometimes loud) questions, children invite joy.

When kids are in church, we are all reminded that it’s simply about showing up as we are to worship together. Children’s unfiltered curiosity and authenticity consistently help us let go of our pretense. For this reason, children force us to let go of the notion that worship is an hour-long performance.

Life is messy and unpredictable, and a life of faith isn’t any different. Thank goodness your kids are in church, so we don’t forget that piece of wisdom.

Also, God’s family in it’s most vibrant expression is diverse. So, when we’re all together, we are at our best. We remain the most supple of heart and mind, learning Spirit’s teachings through one another.

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Being in church matters to your kids.

A faith community’s life together is the absolute best teaching tool a church has. Children learn most effectively through observing others. And what better way for them to understand a relationship with God than by watching their spiritual grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles walk the road?

Having your kids in church teaches them that their presence and their worship matters. When children are a part of worship, we show them that they are enough just the way they are.

Your investment in them, pushing to make it here on Sunday morning is nurturing their faith, showing them what it looks like to love God and how valuable they are, merely by being.

Thank You

And you’re doing it. Great job! And thank you. I share with you my sincere gratitude on behalf of all churches everywhere, because what you’re doing is hard and because it matters to us all.

The post To the Outrageously Fabulous Parents with Your Kids in Church: I Salute You appeared first on Illustrated Children’s Ministry.