By R. T. Kendall
What people think is the Holy Spirit is often a cheap imitation. Don't be deceived.
Pigeons and doves are in the same family and look much the same. But the pigeon is not the symbol of peace. It was not a pigeon that came down and remained on Jesus. The turtledove--symbolizing the Holy Spirit--is different from a pigeon in interesting ways.
My friend Pete Cantrell is an expert on pigeons and turtledoves. His observations have amused and gripped me. Their relevance to a study of the Holy Spirit is almost astonishing.
"Do you see that pigeon?" he once asked me. "Watch him, he's getting ready to bully the pigeon next to him because it is perched on the spot he wants for himself." Seconds later, I watched it happen.
"I don't see that happening with turtledoves," Pete added. "Doves don't fight."
It seems to me that many of the claims to the presence of the Dove among us are nothing but pigeon religion--a counterfeit for the Holy Spirit. In my own haste I have presumed the presence of God in my life many times--when it was not the Dove after all. Often it has been a pigeon--not the heavenly Dove--that gave me a "religious" feeling. Here's how you can avoid making the same mistake.
Don't Be Fooled by Appearances
When one is preconditioned for a certain manifestation of the Holy Spirit, it is easy to presume the presence of the genuine Holy Spirit when you see that particular manifestation. Take falling down and laughing as examples.
I happen to believe that the phenomena of falling down and laughing have been the authentic results of God's presence in some places. But when one attends a church where this happens a lot, it's likely that someone could easily fall to the floor after being prayed for and that there could be an entirely natural explanation for it.
Several years ago, because I was sitting on the front row, I felt compelled to come forward when the preacher asked all church leaders to line up for prayer in the front. I sincerely hoped that God would come down on me and do whatever He pleased. Seventy or 80 men and women were lined up ahead of me for prayer.
As the preacher prayed for each person, every one of them fell backward into the arms of the "catcher" waiting next in line. Then the preacher came to me. I stood there like the Statue of Liberty. Nothing happened.
He prayed again, then a third time. Had I closed my eyes and been less conscious of standing straight, I suspect I too would have fallen.
I felt sorry for the preacher and wanted to apologize for his embarrassment when I didn't fall. I wanted to go down--I promise you. But I didn't want to be pushed over by a pigeon!
I'm not saying that the Dove did not come down on some, if not all the other people in that line. But I believe that their expectancy was so high and the preconditioning so powerful that a pigeon could have done the same thing.
Pigeons may be present whenever God shows up in genuine Holy Spirit power. On one night there may be a most awesome sense of God's presence.
You may feel it in the worship, in the preaching and in the time of prayer ministry. People may be shedding tears of joy and repentance and laughing and crying. Scores may be converted and many healed.
You can't wait for the next night. That night the same worship group leads with the same songs and hymns. The same preacher takes his text from God's Word. But God chooses not to show up.
The important issue is this: Will the minister in charge have the integrity not to manipulate the people? Or will he feel that to be successful, that night's meeting must appear to be just like the meeting on the previous night? If he thinks that, it is likely he may practice pigeon religion in order to get the same results.
The genuine Dove is like the wind that blows "'wherever it pleases'" (John 3:8, NIV). If one is truly sensitive to the Spirit, he or she must flow with the Spirit as well. And if one is equally sensitive to His absence, that person will honor God's sovereignty and will not pretend.
It takes a lot of courage to yield to the Spirit when He comes in power. It takes equal courage to be unpretentious when He is absent. Both aspects of the Dove can threaten one's comfort zone.
There is nothing like a large crowd to counterfeit the presence of the Dove. A big group can create an expectant atmosphere. Nothing preconditions a leader or a congregation like a church that's filled with people.
If there is a lack of discernment and sensitivity to the person of the Spirit, which is needed all the more at such a time, a pigeon could come down on the heads of everyone present, and no one would know the difference. I fear this has happened many times--and to the best of people.
The initial similarity of appearance between a pigeon and the Dove can even produce a "bandwagon" effect--everyone becomes excited and wants to be "in" on what is happening. This can continue for some time. But eventually one wakes up and comes to terms with the sobering possibility that it was all hype. It hurts when you realize you were taken in and that there was a fleshly explanation for everything that happened.
This can happen at an individual level as well, whether it be through speaking in tongues or through prophetic words of knowledge. If we convince ourselves that God must manifest Himself, we will settle for almost anything.
It is almost as if one says, "Well, if I can't have the Dove, I'll take a pigeon." But if we believe that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, we ought not settle for the counterfeit.
Don't Manipulate the Spirit
A pigeon can be domesticated, trained and manipulated. A pigeon can be easily controlled and made to conform. Not so with a turtledove.
Nor can the Spirit of God be easily manipulated or controlled: "'The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going,'" (John 3:8). You cannot make the Holy Dove do anything--except when you make it fly away.
Feeling the need to control the Holy Spirit may be one of the greatest abuses of the Spirit. When we begin to feel we can control the will of the Holy Spirit, pigeon religion has moved in. Yet often we continue trying to convince ourselves that it must be the Dove.
The issue is control. Who's in charge? Some people play with the Holy Spirit as if He has no will of His own.
We can fall prey to this when we are praying alone by attempting to do all the talking--thus quenching the Spirit. Or we can read the Bible and do all the thinking. In this way, the Dove does not have a chance to slip in.
The same can happen with public leadership. A powerful leader (even a worship leader or preacher) can sometimes control a crowd with his or her gift and personality. The people out there may not have a clue they are being manipulated.
The problem lies in the fact that one's gift is, in a sense, also one's anointing. God shapes each gift and personality for His glory.
However, not everything that someone with an anointed gift does is Spirit-led. We are under a solemn obligation to follow--not lead--the Holy Spirit. I may have an anointing to teach and preach, but I can get ahead of the Lord. When I do, pigeon religion takes over because I am in control.
Some years ago I talked with a worship leader about his style of leading worship. He admitted he had a gift that enabled him to control an audience.
He could make them do almost anything--clap, jump, sit or weep. When he did this, the people never knew they had been conditioned for a certain response in much the same way pigeons are trained to perform a particular behavior. It is an exceedingly rare worship leader who is utterly sensitive to the Dove and does not get ahead of the Lord.
Pigeon religion is man in control. It is manipulative, usurping the place of the Dove.
The gracious Spirit is gentle and prudent. Like the meek and lowly Jesus, the Dove is neither intrusive (coming when not invited) nor obtrusive (unpleasantly noticeable). He is self-effacing. When He is invited and accepts the invitation, the result takes man out of the picture.
When the Spirit is present, people want to wait on the Spirit. They want to worship, and they let the Spirit do the leading. When this happens, it is an unforgettable experience--one worth waiting for.
The Spirit will not be manipulated. The Dove flutters away as soon as one tries to do this, and the pigeon comes in.
Don't Be Territorial
A pigeon thinks a certain place belongs to him. Pigeon religion is manifested when one instinctively feels he or she has a "corner" on the anointing. This happens when we take ourselves too seriously.
It also happens when we decide we own the franchise on God's enterprise in a particular theological or geographic area. As a result, we struggle against someone else "elbowing in" on our calling, area of expertise or following.
This is a party spirit, a rival or competitive spirit. Because we uphold a particular emphasis, we want to be the sole vanguard for the "party line."
Nothing is more deadly than a rival spirit in the church of God. Take the subject of revival, for example. I think we all agree that there is a heart cry for revival today. I doubt there is any evangelical group or church that is not praying for revival--a sovereign outpouring of God's Spirit that will revive the people of God and result in many conversions.
The problem is, we all want it to come to us! We all tend to see ourselves as having "borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day" (Matt. 20:12). We resent it if God makes others "equal to us"! We want God to bless our efforts, our party line and our denomination.
Therefore we tend to dismiss any report of God's coming down powerfully on anyone but us. We honestly believe it couldn't happen to those who are of a different theological persuasion or ecclesiastical setting.
Not long ago a weekly prayer meeting on the second floor of a civic center in Nairobi, Kenya, centered on revival. A group of a dozen Western missionaries prayed earnestly that God would send revival to Nairobi.
At exactly the same time, 700 Kenyans were praying noisily and worshiping God--and growing rapidly--in the large auditorium just beneath the group of Western missionaries. The irony is, God was answering the missionaries' prayers!
But they could not bring themselves to recognize revival under their noses--for the Kenyans below them didn't represent their party line. Another example of pigeon religion!
None of us has a monopoly on the anointing. Jesus' disciples wanted to stop someone praying in Jesus' name "'because he is not one of us'" (Luke 9:49-50). Jesus stepped in, admonishing, "'Do not stop him...for whoever is not against you is for you.'"
Even Joshua, when he was young and still had a lot to learn, was unhappy when certain people were prophesying without recognized credentials. "But Moses replied: 'Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!'" (Num. 11:29). That is the way God would have us all to reject pigeon religion and pray for the restoration of His honor in the world (rather than just in our own ministries).
The Spirit will do His work--if we don't get in the way. We must not step in where we don't belong or elbow in on the Spirit's territory. For the Spirit to be able to do His work, we must simply be the channel through which He works. If we try to do what He does best, He flutters away.
You may think you are incapable of being deceived by a pigeon. But all of us are as capable of following pigeon religion as we are of following the Holy Dove.
Simon Peter was being led by the Dove when he said to Jesus, "'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'" (Matt. 16:16). Yet just a few verses later Jesus turned and said to Peter: "'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men'" (v. 23).
Our best guarantee against following pigeon religion is an ever-increasing sensitivity to the Dove.
Don't Settle for Substitutes
People possess natural qualities that can appear to be fruits of the Holy Spirit. We need to learn the difference.
A pleasant personality can look like the fruit of the Spirit. There are people who are just simply nice. They are sweet, friendly and cheerful. They are the type of people you want to be around all the time. At times their pleasant personalities can put Christians who have been saved for years to shame.
However, sometimes in their case an aspect of God's common grace is substituting for the Spirit's manifestation. Their pleasantness may have nothing whatever to do with the fruit of the Spirit. Actually, they acted the same way before they were converted.
It can be difficult to convince people like this of their own need to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. But sooner or later their self-righteousness will surface if they haven't been convicted of sin. If you recognize this problem in yourself, I urge you to do two things:
* Thank God for giving you your pleasing temperament.
*Pray harder than ever to be sensitive to sin and to the Spirit.
Emotional maturity can look like spiritual maturity. Some people grow up faster than others, and some develop spiritually more quickly than others. There are many explanations for this.
If a person has developed emotionally in a manner that shows fewer psychological problems, it should not be surprising that he or she appears spiritually mature as well. A person like this may or may not be strong in private prayer, worship and Bible reading but will nonetheless appear levelheaded and responsible compared with a neurotic Christian.
Regeneration and sanctification do not necessarily eradicate damaged emotions that come from abuse or neglect as one was growing up. For this reason a Christian who had severely damaged emotions as a child may struggle in areas in which a relatively unspiritual person does not. The latter may appear to be more godly when this is not really the case.
For some people, then, the appearance of the Dove may not be the explanation for their apparent maturity. Yet these same people are often the ones who get voted into positions of church leadership and who go into full-time ministry.
They are not unlike King Saul--they have the influence but not necessarily the anointing. Pigeon religion is widespread in the church.
The problem becomes even more complicated when ordinary Christians--beset with emotional difficulties but nonetheless consumed with a love for God and His Word--think that their church leaders aren't very spiritual. A recent poll showed that the average church leader spends only four minutes a day in quiet time.
Cultural and intellectual tastes can look like theological maturity. Some people have a head start when it comes to upbringing. They are brought up with poise, elegance and a certain aptitude for intellectual things. They go to the better schools. They have a cerebral framework that others do not have.
When people such as this become Christians, they may take to Pauline theology like a cat chasing a mouse. Does this mean they are more spiritual? Possibly, but not necessarily. There could be a natural explanation.
People who are theologically minded are not necessarily more interested in the things of the Spirit. They often think it is far more important to articulate the implications of justification by faith alone than to be personally filled with the Spirit.
At the other end of the spectrum are people who are more interested in things of the Spirit than they are in the intricacies of theological orthodoxy. But these people are not necessarily more spiritual. They may lack theological training and are therefore drawn more naturally to experiential knowledge than to doctrine.
We must resist the temptation to be judgmental about things that are opposed to our own interest levels. Often what appeals to a believer can be explained in natural terms rather than by Holy Spirit-motivated explanation.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Myths of Faith Healing
By Larry Keefauver
Some believers focus exclusively on faith as the key to healing. Yet Jesus healed many who apparently had no faith. Some were healed because their friends had faith. Others were bound up by demonic spirits and healed by exorcism, even against their wills.
The truth is that God heals. The myth is that God always heals now at the initiative of our faith.
Faith teacher Frederick K.C. Price has asserted: "The seventh method of receiving healing--[which] I believe is the highest kind of faith--is the highest way to receive healing...If you believe you receive it, you will confess that: 'Bless God, I believe I am healed. I believe I have received my healing...I believe that it is so. I believe that I can walk in divine health all the days of my life.' You are reading after one man who will never be sick, and I'm not being presumptuous."
Myth is mixed here with truth. The highest kind of faith is, "I believe in Jesus," not just, "I believe."
It is true that faith must be our initiative. But even our initiative comes through the prompting of the Holy Spirit: "No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). Our faith helps us receive healing, just as the lack of faith hinders healing. But healing does not depend on faith. Healing depends on the Healer.
Healing is the will of God. Canadian evangelist Peter Youngren wrote: "Jesus clearly shows us God's will in healing ... the Word of God declares that 'great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all' (Matt. 12:15). When Jesus healed all, He was obviously doing the will of His Father, because He only did that which the Father wanted Him to do."
Youngren adds: "This is why you can come with boldness asking God for healing. God is on your side. He wants the best for you. He is good."
So, if God wills all to be healed, then can your faith move His hand to heal you? In the words of the Hertz rental car commercial: "Not exactly!"
Your faith moves Him to save you (see Rom. 10:9-13; Eph. 2:8). And in your salvation is your healing: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 'He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses'" (Matt. 8:17; Is. 53:4-6).
But your faith does not effect your healing now. When you are healed rests entirely on what the sovereign purposes of the Healer are.
Consider this biblical example. In John 5 Jesus healed one paralytic at the pool of Bethesda though a multitude thronged that place daily to be healed. Why was one man healed at that moment while others were not?
John 5:19 gives the answer when Jesus confessed, "'Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.'"
Bible scholar Jack Deere correctly observes that the initiative for the miraculous in Jesus' ministry did not begin with Him but with the Father. "He healed only the people He saw His Father healing," Deere writes. "The only firm reason for the healing of the paralytic that we can derive from the context of John 5 is that the Father willed it, and Jesus executed His Father's will ... We are ultimately faced with the conclusion that sometimes the Lord works miracles for His own sovereign purposes without giving any explanation for His actions to His followers."
The second myth about healing is that if you stand fast in faith, you will be physically healed in time and space. Ken and Gloria Copeland have declared that healing will come if we have faith in our hearts and God's Word in our mouths. But, they add: "It may take time for it to manifest in your body. So stand fast in faith, giving thanks to God until it does. Focus on God's Word, not on physical symptoms."
In what do we "stand fast"? The "rock" on which we stand isn't faith or healing but Christ alone--the Healer. In Hebrews 10:23 we are admonished to hold fast to the profession of our faith. But in what is our profession of faith? Certainly, it is not in faith or in healing.
Be careful that your faith is not in faith itself--or, worse yet, in a faith teacher! Just believing hard enough, long enough or strong enough will not strengthen you or prompt your healing. Doing mental gymnastics to "hold on to your miracle" will not cause your healing to manifest now.
So what is faith? It is more than believing in your heart that God heals. The truth is that God is the God who heals. Faith is trusting the God who heals. Faith is a radical, absolute surrender to the God who heals. Faith is not holding on for your healing but holding on to the God who can do the impossible.
The truth is that your healing may manifest in eternity, not in time. If your trust is in God who heals, then when He heals you is secondary to belonging to the Healer. Certainly you will thank Him if He heals you today. But if your healing comes beyond death in eternity, will you praise Him now for that?
Paul did just that: "'O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?' The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:55-58).
The third myth about healing is that if you just confess your healing, you will be healed right now. But you should confess the Healer, not your healing.
In his best-selling book, The Bible Cure, Dr. Reginald B. Cherry encourages us to "speak to the mountain" of our illness when we pray. That is important in prayer. But praying it and saying it won't make physical healing manifest now.
Positive confession does not effect healing. If that were true, anyone who believes in mind-over-matter mental exercises could heal people. Only Jesus heals.
Our confession should be in Him, not in being healed now. Jesus sternly warned: "'Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven'" (Matt. 10:32-33).
It's time we throw out the lies that cloud the truth about faith and healing. It's time we embrace the scriptural truths that shatter shallow myths and bring us freedom to confidently trust God.
Some believers focus exclusively on faith as the key to healing. Yet Jesus healed many who apparently had no faith. Some were healed because their friends had faith. Others were bound up by demonic spirits and healed by exorcism, even against their wills.
The truth is that God heals. The myth is that God always heals now at the initiative of our faith.
Faith teacher Frederick K.C. Price has asserted: "The seventh method of receiving healing--[which] I believe is the highest kind of faith--is the highest way to receive healing...If you believe you receive it, you will confess that: 'Bless God, I believe I am healed. I believe I have received my healing...I believe that it is so. I believe that I can walk in divine health all the days of my life.' You are reading after one man who will never be sick, and I'm not being presumptuous."
Myth is mixed here with truth. The highest kind of faith is, "I believe in Jesus," not just, "I believe."
It is true that faith must be our initiative. But even our initiative comes through the prompting of the Holy Spirit: "No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). Our faith helps us receive healing, just as the lack of faith hinders healing. But healing does not depend on faith. Healing depends on the Healer.
Healing is the will of God. Canadian evangelist Peter Youngren wrote: "Jesus clearly shows us God's will in healing ... the Word of God declares that 'great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all' (Matt. 12:15). When Jesus healed all, He was obviously doing the will of His Father, because He only did that which the Father wanted Him to do."
Youngren adds: "This is why you can come with boldness asking God for healing. God is on your side. He wants the best for you. He is good."
So, if God wills all to be healed, then can your faith move His hand to heal you? In the words of the Hertz rental car commercial: "Not exactly!"
Your faith moves Him to save you (see Rom. 10:9-13; Eph. 2:8). And in your salvation is your healing: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 'He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses'" (Matt. 8:17; Is. 53:4-6).
But your faith does not effect your healing now. When you are healed rests entirely on what the sovereign purposes of the Healer are.
Consider this biblical example. In John 5 Jesus healed one paralytic at the pool of Bethesda though a multitude thronged that place daily to be healed. Why was one man healed at that moment while others were not?
John 5:19 gives the answer when Jesus confessed, "'Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.'"
Bible scholar Jack Deere correctly observes that the initiative for the miraculous in Jesus' ministry did not begin with Him but with the Father. "He healed only the people He saw His Father healing," Deere writes. "The only firm reason for the healing of the paralytic that we can derive from the context of John 5 is that the Father willed it, and Jesus executed His Father's will ... We are ultimately faced with the conclusion that sometimes the Lord works miracles for His own sovereign purposes without giving any explanation for His actions to His followers."
The second myth about healing is that if you stand fast in faith, you will be physically healed in time and space. Ken and Gloria Copeland have declared that healing will come if we have faith in our hearts and God's Word in our mouths. But, they add: "It may take time for it to manifest in your body. So stand fast in faith, giving thanks to God until it does. Focus on God's Word, not on physical symptoms."
In what do we "stand fast"? The "rock" on which we stand isn't faith or healing but Christ alone--the Healer. In Hebrews 10:23 we are admonished to hold fast to the profession of our faith. But in what is our profession of faith? Certainly, it is not in faith or in healing.
Be careful that your faith is not in faith itself--or, worse yet, in a faith teacher! Just believing hard enough, long enough or strong enough will not strengthen you or prompt your healing. Doing mental gymnastics to "hold on to your miracle" will not cause your healing to manifest now.
So what is faith? It is more than believing in your heart that God heals. The truth is that God is the God who heals. Faith is trusting the God who heals. Faith is a radical, absolute surrender to the God who heals. Faith is not holding on for your healing but holding on to the God who can do the impossible.
The truth is that your healing may manifest in eternity, not in time. If your trust is in God who heals, then when He heals you is secondary to belonging to the Healer. Certainly you will thank Him if He heals you today. But if your healing comes beyond death in eternity, will you praise Him now for that?
Paul did just that: "'O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?' The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:55-58).
The third myth about healing is that if you just confess your healing, you will be healed right now. But you should confess the Healer, not your healing.
In his best-selling book, The Bible Cure, Dr. Reginald B. Cherry encourages us to "speak to the mountain" of our illness when we pray. That is important in prayer. But praying it and saying it won't make physical healing manifest now.
Positive confession does not effect healing. If that were true, anyone who believes in mind-over-matter mental exercises could heal people. Only Jesus heals.
Our confession should be in Him, not in being healed now. Jesus sternly warned: "'Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven'" (Matt. 10:32-33).
It's time we throw out the lies that cloud the truth about faith and healing. It's time we embrace the scriptural truths that shatter shallow myths and bring us freedom to confidently trust God.
Making Him Known
By Andy Park
The worship leader is called to educate believers in the wonders of God and to lead sinners into an awareness of His love.
A survey taken in churches in the United States showed that people forget 80 percent of sermons they hear within three days after hearing them. Even the best sermon illustrations are usually forgotten.
What do people remember? The songs! The words of songs stick in our heads because of the memorable melodies, rhymes and rhythms attached to them.
The New Testament hymns, which are woven into the fabric of the gospels, epistles and Revelation, teach many basic doctrines (see Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Cor. 13:1-13).
The rich theological depth of these hymns sends us a clear message--teaching is an important part of singing hymns. In assembling song sets, we are proclaiming the truth about God's identity and our own identity as His heirs, servants and reconcilers of lost people.
Telling the Story of Jesus. Worship leading is a celebration of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. The story of Jesus remains constant, and the message is timeless and relevant for all people of all cultures. But in postmodern society, the story is needed more than ever.
Into the spirits of Christians and non-Christians challenged by changing values and beliefs the worship leader injects the unchanging story of Jesus. Songs of worship are a primary means of telling the story of Jesus.
Through singing the story of Jesus we give people a context for living. As we relive the coming of Christ into the world, our own lives make sense. In worship we see ourselves on the continuum of time--we live between the first and second comings of Christ.
This is more than an intellectual review of information. Within the worshiping community, we are formed by Christ in our midst. In worship, we experience the essence of family.
In worship we not only see who God is, but we also see who we are. As rays of revelation stream down from heaven, we say: "Oh yeah! Jesus is alive! He is real; He is here; and He gives me purpose for living. I am not just a carpenter, a doctor, a truck driver, a mother of small children. I am an eternal child of God."
As citizens of heaven, everything we are springs out of everything God is. We are a "chosen race" because we are children of the Chosen One; we are a "royal priesthood" because we are followers of the great High Priest; we are a "holy nation" because we are subjects of the Holy One of Israel (see 1 Pet. 2:9-10).
"Worship is a pathway and the atmosphere for people--the saved and the unsaved alike--to discover their royal calling in Christ, their destiny in life, their fullest personal worth and their deepest human fulfillment." This is Jack Hayford's eloquent explanation of seeing our identity in Christ through worship.
Paradoxically, worship is one of the most humbling yet ennobling activities we can do. It's humbling because we bow before our Creator, and it is dignifying because in it we realize that we are heirs of the highest royalty.
In leading worship, we give people a window to heaven. Our songs are the vehicle of fixing our gaze on things above, not on things on the earth.
Fighting Doctrinal Battles Through Song. Most worship leaders wouldn't think of giving themselves the label theologian. Yet through our songs, we present the truth about who God is. We paint a picture of the personality of God and the way He relates to humanity.
One of the most significant battles over doctrine in the early church was the Arian controversy in the fourth century A.D. The issue in question was the divinity of Jesus. Athanasius led the way in arguing that Jesus was "of one substance with the Father"--that He was not created, but was eternal and infinite along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. His opponent, Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, argued that the Son was created by the Father and was not equal to the Father.
This crucial doctrinal battle raged for many years. At times, popular opinion was on the side of Arius. This controversy was the main subject of debate at the council of Nicea in A.D. 325.
This episode of church history is relevant to our discussion because the hymns written by Athanasius and Arius were among their most powerful tools in fighting for their beliefs.
Through worship music, our souls are fed with a rich impartation of truth. The worship leader's challenge is to serve good food to the church every week, giving them a nutritious diet of truth, encouragement and exhortation.
Worship as Evangelism. We face our own modern-day Arian controversy, since we live in a culture where the majority does not accept Jesus as God. Our job is not only to explain the nature of God to Christians, but to also present the gospel to the unconvinced.
Tony Campolo, who teaches at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, observes that in past years, the voluntary chapel services were largely neglected by the students. However, in recent years this has changed dramatically, and students are enjoying extended times of worship in chapel.
Campolo writes: "Students are being converted by music. This is surprising to me, because I always thought sermons were the decisive factor in bringing people into a relationship with Christ. But, I am finding that worship can do that even more effectively and deeply. Young people are looking for a relationship with God more than a theology about God. Worship which is truly in the Spirit is giving that to them."
During an outreach, my friend Gary Best met three young men from Morocco. Almost immediately the discussion turned toward a debate over the Bible versus the Quran. So Gary steered the conversation away from the argument and invited the men to a worship service.
At the end of worship, Gary found the three young Moroccan guys that he had met earlier in the day. He thanked them for coming and realized that they wanted to spend some time with the team. When Gary told them the team was leaving the next day, one of the men said: "I want to know Jesus. How can I know Him?"
"You can know Him right now," Gary replied. So three of the team members led the men to the Lord.
These people hadn't been wowed by a concert; they had been struck by the spirit of worship. It wasn't a performance; it was a heart cry.
Christians and pre-Christian seekers are drawn to genuine worship. Today more than ever our cultural climate calls for genuine worship rather than glitzy shows or dry recitations of theological truth. People know the difference between a dead religion and a living relationship. So when they see people deeply engaged in worship, they take notice.
There is something tangible in the air, yet elusive. People aren't just singing to the ceiling; they are actually communing with God. When a pre-Christian who is hungry for God sees this happening, the light begins to dawn.
I see worship as a major factor in bringing people along the continuum from unbelief toward knowing God. With the added factors of hearing biblical truth and having friends who can personally interact with them, worship is a powerful tool for convincing and convicting people of God's existence and His love for them.
Worship leaders have multiple functions--we invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, and we teach, prophesy and evangelize through the lyrics of our songs.
Seeing worship leading through this multicolored lens heightens our awareness of the breadth and depth of our ministry through song.
Through our music, the Holy Spirit writes on the hearts of men, women and children eternal truths of many colors and hues.
The worship leader is called to educate believers in the wonders of God and to lead sinners into an awareness of His love.
A survey taken in churches in the United States showed that people forget 80 percent of sermons they hear within three days after hearing them. Even the best sermon illustrations are usually forgotten.
What do people remember? The songs! The words of songs stick in our heads because of the memorable melodies, rhymes and rhythms attached to them.
The New Testament hymns, which are woven into the fabric of the gospels, epistles and Revelation, teach many basic doctrines (see Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Cor. 13:1-13).
The rich theological depth of these hymns sends us a clear message--teaching is an important part of singing hymns. In assembling song sets, we are proclaiming the truth about God's identity and our own identity as His heirs, servants and reconcilers of lost people.
Telling the Story of Jesus. Worship leading is a celebration of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. The story of Jesus remains constant, and the message is timeless and relevant for all people of all cultures. But in postmodern society, the story is needed more than ever.
Into the spirits of Christians and non-Christians challenged by changing values and beliefs the worship leader injects the unchanging story of Jesus. Songs of worship are a primary means of telling the story of Jesus.
Through singing the story of Jesus we give people a context for living. As we relive the coming of Christ into the world, our own lives make sense. In worship we see ourselves on the continuum of time--we live between the first and second comings of Christ.
This is more than an intellectual review of information. Within the worshiping community, we are formed by Christ in our midst. In worship, we experience the essence of family.
In worship we not only see who God is, but we also see who we are. As rays of revelation stream down from heaven, we say: "Oh yeah! Jesus is alive! He is real; He is here; and He gives me purpose for living. I am not just a carpenter, a doctor, a truck driver, a mother of small children. I am an eternal child of God."
As citizens of heaven, everything we are springs out of everything God is. We are a "chosen race" because we are children of the Chosen One; we are a "royal priesthood" because we are followers of the great High Priest; we are a "holy nation" because we are subjects of the Holy One of Israel (see 1 Pet. 2:9-10).
"Worship is a pathway and the atmosphere for people--the saved and the unsaved alike--to discover their royal calling in Christ, their destiny in life, their fullest personal worth and their deepest human fulfillment." This is Jack Hayford's eloquent explanation of seeing our identity in Christ through worship.
Paradoxically, worship is one of the most humbling yet ennobling activities we can do. It's humbling because we bow before our Creator, and it is dignifying because in it we realize that we are heirs of the highest royalty.
In leading worship, we give people a window to heaven. Our songs are the vehicle of fixing our gaze on things above, not on things on the earth.
Fighting Doctrinal Battles Through Song. Most worship leaders wouldn't think of giving themselves the label theologian. Yet through our songs, we present the truth about who God is. We paint a picture of the personality of God and the way He relates to humanity.
One of the most significant battles over doctrine in the early church was the Arian controversy in the fourth century A.D. The issue in question was the divinity of Jesus. Athanasius led the way in arguing that Jesus was "of one substance with the Father"--that He was not created, but was eternal and infinite along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. His opponent, Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, argued that the Son was created by the Father and was not equal to the Father.
This crucial doctrinal battle raged for many years. At times, popular opinion was on the side of Arius. This controversy was the main subject of debate at the council of Nicea in A.D. 325.
This episode of church history is relevant to our discussion because the hymns written by Athanasius and Arius were among their most powerful tools in fighting for their beliefs.
Through worship music, our souls are fed with a rich impartation of truth. The worship leader's challenge is to serve good food to the church every week, giving them a nutritious diet of truth, encouragement and exhortation.
Worship as Evangelism. We face our own modern-day Arian controversy, since we live in a culture where the majority does not accept Jesus as God. Our job is not only to explain the nature of God to Christians, but to also present the gospel to the unconvinced.
Tony Campolo, who teaches at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, observes that in past years, the voluntary chapel services were largely neglected by the students. However, in recent years this has changed dramatically, and students are enjoying extended times of worship in chapel.
Campolo writes: "Students are being converted by music. This is surprising to me, because I always thought sermons were the decisive factor in bringing people into a relationship with Christ. But, I am finding that worship can do that even more effectively and deeply. Young people are looking for a relationship with God more than a theology about God. Worship which is truly in the Spirit is giving that to them."
During an outreach, my friend Gary Best met three young men from Morocco. Almost immediately the discussion turned toward a debate over the Bible versus the Quran. So Gary steered the conversation away from the argument and invited the men to a worship service.
At the end of worship, Gary found the three young Moroccan guys that he had met earlier in the day. He thanked them for coming and realized that they wanted to spend some time with the team. When Gary told them the team was leaving the next day, one of the men said: "I want to know Jesus. How can I know Him?"
"You can know Him right now," Gary replied. So three of the team members led the men to the Lord.
These people hadn't been wowed by a concert; they had been struck by the spirit of worship. It wasn't a performance; it was a heart cry.
Christians and pre-Christian seekers are drawn to genuine worship. Today more than ever our cultural climate calls for genuine worship rather than glitzy shows or dry recitations of theological truth. People know the difference between a dead religion and a living relationship. So when they see people deeply engaged in worship, they take notice.
There is something tangible in the air, yet elusive. People aren't just singing to the ceiling; they are actually communing with God. When a pre-Christian who is hungry for God sees this happening, the light begins to dawn.
I see worship as a major factor in bringing people along the continuum from unbelief toward knowing God. With the added factors of hearing biblical truth and having friends who can personally interact with them, worship is a powerful tool for convincing and convicting people of God's existence and His love for them.
Worship leaders have multiple functions--we invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, and we teach, prophesy and evangelize through the lyrics of our songs.
Seeing worship leading through this multicolored lens heightens our awareness of the breadth and depth of our ministry through song.
Through our music, the Holy Spirit writes on the hearts of men, women and children eternal truths of many colors and hues.
His Presence: The Key to Church Growth
By Larry Keefauver
We run to conferences, flock to seminars and scour bookstores, looking to the church-growth gurus for the latest secrets that will teach us how to maximize our ministries. But the real key has a whole lot less to do with us and a whole lot more to do with Him.
Traveling around the world and speaking at numerous conferences and seminars, I am often asked by pastors, "What is the No. 1 church conference to attend?" As a former editor of Ministries Today and having written for a number of others periodicals, I constantly peruse the newest church magazines. What I see is what you see: page after page of conference ads, all heralding themselves as the best, the premier, the most prophetic or apostolic conference of the year.
Immediately the reader searches the faces of those shining stars pictured in the ads. Depending on the reader's experience and bias, various charismatic speakers carry varying degrees of the weight of glory.
First the heavyweights--those who are in greatest demand. Their books are best sellers. Their appearances at conferences draw the largest crowds. Their offerings reach into the highest levels of sowing and reaping.
Next are the lightweights. They are the emerging spiritual warriors who will definitely open the heavens above a city, although not quite as much glory pours out as when the heavyweights speak. Nonetheless, the reader nods in recognition that the mixture of heavyweights and lightweights could definitely provide the breakthrough needed--especially if early registration is paid, space in the actual conference hotel is booked and the reader arrives early to sit as close to the front as possible.
Obviously, I'm being a bit facetious. But with such a variety of leadership conferences and church-growth models, how do we know which paradigm is best?
Admittedly, I have chased both the rising and falling stars of church-growth experts. Early on, I went to Robert Schuller's leadership events. Then followed John Maxwell, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren and others. All have great insights and inspirational messages. And books...good heavens, do I have the books!
Based on the number of conferences I have attended both as a participant and a speaker--not to mention my education, all the books I've read and 30 years of pastoral experience--I should now have the largest church in my city. But alas, I don't. Hence, I must still be at least one conference short of my breakthrough!
Let me share what I've observed in church-growth paradigms, and then what works. Every model has an upside and a downside save one. Each prototype does offer us some constructive elements but cannot by itself give a total picture.
MINISTRY PARADIGMS
Most church-growth paradigms, as much as they try not to, still have some limitations built into their designs due to cultural biases and the creators' blind spots. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some examples.
1. The past-driven church. The past-driven church tries to drive forward by looking constantly in the rearview mirror. The way things used to be done dictate the boundaries for the present. Glory days are fondly remembered. Pictures and memories from the big events of the past are regularly projected before the people.
Strengths: Much can be learned from the past; past successes build hope for the future; a history gives stability and foundation. Weaknesses: The past limits the present; past successes can become idols; history can become a grave.
2. The policy-driven church. The policy-driven church finds itself driving a certain model built and shaped by pioneers. Like automobiles, churches have makes and models. We have the make called "Lutheran" and the model called "Missouri Synod." Or the make called "Pentecostal" and the model called "Assemblies of God." We even have the make called "interdenominational" and the model called "faith," "healing," "latter rain" or "new wave."
The policies of the pioneers, either as oral or written tradition, govern the directions and thoughts of policy-driven leaders. The policies of the way worship should flow, the style people should preach in, or the way structure or governance must be implemented are all essentials for the policy-driven church.
Strengths: Policies, tested and true, provide firm footing; policies provide for needed accountability; policies provide structures for decision-making. Weaknesses: Policies often take priority over people; policies limit creativity; policies inhibit the new thing God is doing.
3. The personality-driven or pastor-driven church. In the personality-driven church, the present leader-visionary drives all that happens, or a past leader's ghost haunts everything. In a pastor-driven church, it's almost impossible for an outsider to succeed the founder. Only an insider who carefully maintains the vision of the founder can assume the mantle of ongoing leadership.
What often happens in the personality-driven church is that a family member or close associate of the founding pastor takes the reins of succession. If an outsider is brought in, the frequent scenario that unfolds sees the successor become an unintentional interim pastor lasting but a few years. Or, the successor slowly "runs off" the old diehards and eventually after five to seven years takes over the church, which by then essentially has a whole new constituency who never knew the founding pastor. Or, the successor so radically changes things that he either fosters a mutiny or leads one.
Strengths: A strong personality gives vision and leadership; dynamic personalities attract followers; decisions are efficiently made by strong leaders. Weaknesses: Strong leaders often surround themselves with weaker staff and laity; sheep often will follow only one shepherd; laity are rarely released into ministry.
4. The program-driven or people-driven church. This church usually has the well-worn philosophy, "Find a need and meet it; find a hurt and heal it." If the need is youth or children's ministry, then the program-driven church builds the best youth or children's ministry program in the area. If the need is to help hurting people, then the church abounds with self-help and recovery programs.
Whenever a new group of people voices a need or hurt, the leaders promptly find the best program, fund the resources and train the facilitators to get the job done. The church grows by fishing with hooks and bait. The bait is a new program to attract people. They are hooked into the church through taking the program bait.
Strengths: Effective programs meet the needs of many people; programs keep people involved in ministry; people make decisions democratically or through consensus, giving many people a feel of ownership. Weaknesses: Ineffective programs die hard; programs segment a congregation and create program "turf wars"; people not having a program to meet their particular needs leave.
5. The purpose-driven church. This paradigm springs out of a mission or purpose statement that comes from a visionary leader or leadership team. That purpose or mission-vision statement has core values that permeate everything the church does. If a program, position or people group is not on-purpose, then it must change or cease to exist.
Everything in the purpose-driven church fits neatly together like a complete jigsaw puzzle. From the parking lot workers to the greeters, from the part-time volunteers to the full-time pastors, from the Sunday morning bulletins to the new members' packets, everything looks, feels, talks and implements the church's purpose.
Strengths: Everyone and everything stays on-purpose; decisions are facilitated by understanding everyone's purpose and core values; unity and cohesion emerge from team ministry. Weaknesses: Specific purpose or mission statements may tend to exclude some; important decisions may be ignored if their tangency to the purpose is not immediately recognizable; new purpose is difficult to birth.
All of these paradigms have something to contribute to congregational life. Still, no one paradigm encompasses all of these models. Each model tends to exclude the others and demands a church's ultimate loyalty.
However, it is possible to envision all of the above as parts of a car. Each part or paradigm fits as an important part of the whole. The windows might be purpose. The doors might be the programs. The steering wheel could be the personality or pastor. The past could be the body or frame. The policies may be the engine.
But what makes it go? That which powers the vehicle must come from outside the structure. It must constantly flow, be renewed and be replenished.
That power is God's Spirit. It is God's presence continually birthing new people into the kingdom, constantly healing and delivering the hurting and bound, and creatively birthing new purposes that build on the solid foundations laid in the past through biblical principles, persistent prayer, and powerful signs and wonders. This is the presence-driven church.
AUTHENTIC CHURCH GROWTH
The presence-driven church may encompass some or all of the above paradigms. However, God's presence precedes and permeates all other models of church growth. Without His presence, church growth is simply a menagerie of methodologies doomed to temporality. A method may work for the moment, but shouldn't our desire be to do only that which has eternal impact?
Radical? Absolutely! It's time we return to our roots. Church growth is rooted in what God does rather than what we devise. Too often we are so busy with good ideas on how to get people through the door that God's ideas get lost in the shuffle.
Going back to our roots in Scripture, being presence-driven literally derives from Ephesians 5:18, where Paul instructs us to "be filled with the Spirit" (NKJV). The filling referred to here projects the image of a sail being filled with the wind (the ruwach, or wind, of God). The breath of God's Spirit must fill the church, empowering it to move forward into God's destiny.
God's Spirit births every movement of the church. Without being Spirit- or presence-driven, the church sits listlessly in time, like a sailboat going nowhere in a calm sea. We can use our paradigm as paddles and row as hard as we like, but the forward progress is negligible. Or, we can hoist our sails of worship, catch the wind of His Spirit and move forward into His purpose, plans and productivity (fruit) in ministry.
Two concerns dominate our attention in considering what a presence-driven church looks like: (1) the process--by what birthing process does God's presence impregnate us with both the vision and power to bear lasting fruit for His glory? and (2) the proof--what does the DNA of a presence-driven church contain? What genes mark the church that any discerning believer can observe without a Th.D. or a lifetime of pastoral experience? What evidence can we see by which we know that a church's growth is rooted in God's presence?
God's presence always births. From the beginning, God's presence created something out of nothing. God is the only One who creates something from nothing.
His creative process begets that which is radically new (see Is. 43:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:17). As such, we can always expect God to be doing a new thing in our midst. Therefore, the irreducible constant of a presence-driven church is change.
Presence-driven churches are constantly having babies--literally and figuratively. God's presence shows up, and the impossible is birthed.
Remember the example of Abraham and Sarah? They were going to have a baby (see Gen. 16-17). Both laughed. Both tried to birth an Ishmael--their own idea and creation--instead of Isaac, who was God's answer to the future. How many human driven churches find that they are constantly birthing Ishmaels instead of Isaacs?
Let's take a closer look at the process that takes place in a presence-driven ministry.
1. Presence births purpose. Every purpose goes through a gestation process requiring time, trials, tests and tribulations. Birthing never happens immediately after conception.
Human-driven churches, however, are constantly trying to achieve a purpose too soon, and that always results in miscarriage. God's purpose is always for an appointed time (see Eccl. 3:1; John 12:27). Presence-birthed purpose cannot be thwarted or nullified (see Is. 14:27).
Some advocate that God just has one purpose, or one plan, for a church. Such a mind-set limits the limitless God. In a presence-driven church, the church flows in a river of the Spirit moving from one purpose into the next as God's Spirit directs. Each Spirit-breathed purpose builds on the previous one and leads to the next.
A prophetic word may come to a church, discerning a coming purpose. Leadership must be careful to discern the hour of the heralded purpose. To rush into it prematurely can wreak havoc in a church. To procrastinate may bring decay, or even death, to a body. God's given purpose for a particular time requires implementation at the right time, in the right way and with the right motivation.
2. Purpose births plans. The presence-birthed purpose implemented by a church in "the fullness of time" births a plethora of plans. Why? Because of the prodigality of God. God never creates just one star, one wildflower or one snowflake. The God with cattle on a thousand hills always births a purpose explosive with possibilities, potential and an abundance of plans.
Since we humans often defile, destroy or desecrate that which is holy, God has a built-in, fail-safe method of growth for us. We cannot fail because if we "kill" one plan, another immediately replaces it.
Whatever we touch, we can potentially mess up due to our flesh. However, God has such an abundance of plans (see Jer. 29:11; John 10:10) that we cannot fail for lack of plans. Our job is to be persistent in prayer, patient in planning and prepared to apply biblical principles at every turn. Tragically, some churches fail to grow because they give up on God's plans right before a breakthrough.
3. Plans birth productivity. The bottom line for every ministry is fruit (see John 15): people saved, healed and delivered. If a plan ceases to be productive, discard it. When a purpose ceases to birth plans, its season is past. Be still. Rest in God's presence as the new purpose is birthed.
To sum it up, the process in a presence-driven church is God's presence, which births purpose, which births plans, which births productivity.
BEING PRESENCE-DRIVEN
What marks the presence-driven church? Should we examine the matrix of its DNA, what genes would we uncover as proof that, in fact, the Spirit of God is actually driving or propelling the church forward?
What the world and some liberal theologians deem extraordinary and singular or unrepeatable in history is quite the contrary. Acts 1-2 is both normative and indicative of what the presence-driven church looks like in the 21st century. While the various church-growth paradigms mentioned earlier are in operation all around us, they cannot become the foundations on which we build. While they may be the parts of the vehicle, they will never be the power or petrol that drives the vehicle.
So, what are the ingredients of the petrol? Or, what are the genes of the presence-driven church's DNA? The following proposed list is not exhaustive, but it is, at the least, a beginning point for assessing whether or not the church being grown is presence-birthed and on-purpose or simply an Ishmael posing ever so weakly as an Isaac.
These genes mark the church growing in the Spirit for our times. Each gene identified is evidenced in Acts 1-2. The 21 marks of the presence-driven church are:
1. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Not just a touch, but total immersion in the Spirit.
2. Holy Spirit power. Not just any power, but authoritative power that works miracles.
3. Expectation of Jesus' return. Not just lip service about His presence, but an expectation of His return.
4. One-accord unity. Not just a superficial consensus, but an indivisible covenant.
5. Prayer and supplication. Not just vain repetitions, but intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered.
6. Apostolic leadership. Not just leadership within a local body, but bold leadership for the church in a city or region.
7. Filled with the Spirit. Not just led by the Spirit, but driven and empowered by the Spirit.
8. Tongues with Spirit utterance. Not just a loud cacophony, but a river of language flowing under the Spirit's guidance, accomplishing seemingly impossible spiritual breakthroughs and massive conversions.
9. Signs and wonders. Not just to impress the saved, but to witness to the lost.
10. Prophetic witness. Not ministering the prophetic to the saved, but releasing the prophetic to persuade the lost.
11. Bold proclamation and preaching. Not just preaching to the choir, but proclamation from the Word with boldness to please God, not to tickle human ears.
12. Exalting Jesus. Not just a motivational message, but an exaltation and passionate adoration of Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Lord.
13. Repentance with water baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Not just transfer growth, but true conversion with spiritual babies being born frequently.
14. Many being saved daily. Not just rededications, but the lost daily being snatched from hell by the Good Shepherd through bold, unashamed witnessing. Not just adding to the church, but moving into multiplication (see Acts 6:7).
15. Sound doctrine. Not just teaching for knowledge, but for impartation and equipping the saints to do the work of ministry.
16. Fellowship. Not just meeting as strangers in a service, but body ministry one to another.
17. Breaking of bread. Not just a ritual of the Lord's Supper, but a deep communion partaking of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.
18. Holy fear of God. Not just reverence and respect, but a holy fear akin to the fear that moved Noah to build an ark of salvation for his whole household.
19. Faith together. Not just faith trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord, but faith together to hear the incredible, see the invisible and do the impossible together as His body.
20. Sharing to meet needs. Not just a benevolence fund, but a substantial sharing that could meet the deepest physical needs of people.
21. Joyful gladness, simplicity, favor and praise. Not just a warm, fuzzy feeling generated by a great service, but a simple, heartfelt joy that praises God no matter what the circumstance.
Should you boldly dare to go where few churches have gone before, prepare yourself for stringent challenges posed not just by the world or the enemy (though their attacks will be furious). First, brace yourself for attacks from within your church. Those wedded to a human-driven model will fight hard to hold on to it. Those professing to be with you through thick and thin may be the first to take flight when the Spirit is given full liberty to change the church from organization to organism, from institution to instituting, and from internal revival to reconciling the world to Jesus.
Where do you start? The transformation from a human-driven to a presence-driven church begins with the pastor, pastoral team and congregational leadership. The presence-driven church emerges from the presence-driven life of a pastor and leadership team who are totally, radically, irrevocably surrendered to following Jesus. Such a presence-driven life says what Moses declared: " 'If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here'" (Ex. 33:15).
We run to conferences, flock to seminars and scour bookstores, looking to the church-growth gurus for the latest secrets that will teach us how to maximize our ministries. But the real key has a whole lot less to do with us and a whole lot more to do with Him.
Traveling around the world and speaking at numerous conferences and seminars, I am often asked by pastors, "What is the No. 1 church conference to attend?" As a former editor of Ministries Today and having written for a number of others periodicals, I constantly peruse the newest church magazines. What I see is what you see: page after page of conference ads, all heralding themselves as the best, the premier, the most prophetic or apostolic conference of the year.
Immediately the reader searches the faces of those shining stars pictured in the ads. Depending on the reader's experience and bias, various charismatic speakers carry varying degrees of the weight of glory.
First the heavyweights--those who are in greatest demand. Their books are best sellers. Their appearances at conferences draw the largest crowds. Their offerings reach into the highest levels of sowing and reaping.
Next are the lightweights. They are the emerging spiritual warriors who will definitely open the heavens above a city, although not quite as much glory pours out as when the heavyweights speak. Nonetheless, the reader nods in recognition that the mixture of heavyweights and lightweights could definitely provide the breakthrough needed--especially if early registration is paid, space in the actual conference hotel is booked and the reader arrives early to sit as close to the front as possible.
Obviously, I'm being a bit facetious. But with such a variety of leadership conferences and church-growth models, how do we know which paradigm is best?
Admittedly, I have chased both the rising and falling stars of church-growth experts. Early on, I went to Robert Schuller's leadership events. Then followed John Maxwell, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren and others. All have great insights and inspirational messages. And books...good heavens, do I have the books!
Based on the number of conferences I have attended both as a participant and a speaker--not to mention my education, all the books I've read and 30 years of pastoral experience--I should now have the largest church in my city. But alas, I don't. Hence, I must still be at least one conference short of my breakthrough!
Let me share what I've observed in church-growth paradigms, and then what works. Every model has an upside and a downside save one. Each prototype does offer us some constructive elements but cannot by itself give a total picture.
MINISTRY PARADIGMS
Most church-growth paradigms, as much as they try not to, still have some limitations built into their designs due to cultural biases and the creators' blind spots. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some examples.
1. The past-driven church. The past-driven church tries to drive forward by looking constantly in the rearview mirror. The way things used to be done dictate the boundaries for the present. Glory days are fondly remembered. Pictures and memories from the big events of the past are regularly projected before the people.
Strengths: Much can be learned from the past; past successes build hope for the future; a history gives stability and foundation. Weaknesses: The past limits the present; past successes can become idols; history can become a grave.
2. The policy-driven church. The policy-driven church finds itself driving a certain model built and shaped by pioneers. Like automobiles, churches have makes and models. We have the make called "Lutheran" and the model called "Missouri Synod." Or the make called "Pentecostal" and the model called "Assemblies of God." We even have the make called "interdenominational" and the model called "faith," "healing," "latter rain" or "new wave."
The policies of the pioneers, either as oral or written tradition, govern the directions and thoughts of policy-driven leaders. The policies of the way worship should flow, the style people should preach in, or the way structure or governance must be implemented are all essentials for the policy-driven church.
Strengths: Policies, tested and true, provide firm footing; policies provide for needed accountability; policies provide structures for decision-making. Weaknesses: Policies often take priority over people; policies limit creativity; policies inhibit the new thing God is doing.
3. The personality-driven or pastor-driven church. In the personality-driven church, the present leader-visionary drives all that happens, or a past leader's ghost haunts everything. In a pastor-driven church, it's almost impossible for an outsider to succeed the founder. Only an insider who carefully maintains the vision of the founder can assume the mantle of ongoing leadership.
What often happens in the personality-driven church is that a family member or close associate of the founding pastor takes the reins of succession. If an outsider is brought in, the frequent scenario that unfolds sees the successor become an unintentional interim pastor lasting but a few years. Or, the successor slowly "runs off" the old diehards and eventually after five to seven years takes over the church, which by then essentially has a whole new constituency who never knew the founding pastor. Or, the successor so radically changes things that he either fosters a mutiny or leads one.
Strengths: A strong personality gives vision and leadership; dynamic personalities attract followers; decisions are efficiently made by strong leaders. Weaknesses: Strong leaders often surround themselves with weaker staff and laity; sheep often will follow only one shepherd; laity are rarely released into ministry.
4. The program-driven or people-driven church. This church usually has the well-worn philosophy, "Find a need and meet it; find a hurt and heal it." If the need is youth or children's ministry, then the program-driven church builds the best youth or children's ministry program in the area. If the need is to help hurting people, then the church abounds with self-help and recovery programs.
Whenever a new group of people voices a need or hurt, the leaders promptly find the best program, fund the resources and train the facilitators to get the job done. The church grows by fishing with hooks and bait. The bait is a new program to attract people. They are hooked into the church through taking the program bait.
Strengths: Effective programs meet the needs of many people; programs keep people involved in ministry; people make decisions democratically or through consensus, giving many people a feel of ownership. Weaknesses: Ineffective programs die hard; programs segment a congregation and create program "turf wars"; people not having a program to meet their particular needs leave.
5. The purpose-driven church. This paradigm springs out of a mission or purpose statement that comes from a visionary leader or leadership team. That purpose or mission-vision statement has core values that permeate everything the church does. If a program, position or people group is not on-purpose, then it must change or cease to exist.
Everything in the purpose-driven church fits neatly together like a complete jigsaw puzzle. From the parking lot workers to the greeters, from the part-time volunteers to the full-time pastors, from the Sunday morning bulletins to the new members' packets, everything looks, feels, talks and implements the church's purpose.
Strengths: Everyone and everything stays on-purpose; decisions are facilitated by understanding everyone's purpose and core values; unity and cohesion emerge from team ministry. Weaknesses: Specific purpose or mission statements may tend to exclude some; important decisions may be ignored if their tangency to the purpose is not immediately recognizable; new purpose is difficult to birth.
All of these paradigms have something to contribute to congregational life. Still, no one paradigm encompasses all of these models. Each model tends to exclude the others and demands a church's ultimate loyalty.
However, it is possible to envision all of the above as parts of a car. Each part or paradigm fits as an important part of the whole. The windows might be purpose. The doors might be the programs. The steering wheel could be the personality or pastor. The past could be the body or frame. The policies may be the engine.
But what makes it go? That which powers the vehicle must come from outside the structure. It must constantly flow, be renewed and be replenished.
That power is God's Spirit. It is God's presence continually birthing new people into the kingdom, constantly healing and delivering the hurting and bound, and creatively birthing new purposes that build on the solid foundations laid in the past through biblical principles, persistent prayer, and powerful signs and wonders. This is the presence-driven church.
AUTHENTIC CHURCH GROWTH
The presence-driven church may encompass some or all of the above paradigms. However, God's presence precedes and permeates all other models of church growth. Without His presence, church growth is simply a menagerie of methodologies doomed to temporality. A method may work for the moment, but shouldn't our desire be to do only that which has eternal impact?
Radical? Absolutely! It's time we return to our roots. Church growth is rooted in what God does rather than what we devise. Too often we are so busy with good ideas on how to get people through the door that God's ideas get lost in the shuffle.
Going back to our roots in Scripture, being presence-driven literally derives from Ephesians 5:18, where Paul instructs us to "be filled with the Spirit" (NKJV). The filling referred to here projects the image of a sail being filled with the wind (the ruwach, or wind, of God). The breath of God's Spirit must fill the church, empowering it to move forward into God's destiny.
God's Spirit births every movement of the church. Without being Spirit- or presence-driven, the church sits listlessly in time, like a sailboat going nowhere in a calm sea. We can use our paradigm as paddles and row as hard as we like, but the forward progress is negligible. Or, we can hoist our sails of worship, catch the wind of His Spirit and move forward into His purpose, plans and productivity (fruit) in ministry.
Two concerns dominate our attention in considering what a presence-driven church looks like: (1) the process--by what birthing process does God's presence impregnate us with both the vision and power to bear lasting fruit for His glory? and (2) the proof--what does the DNA of a presence-driven church contain? What genes mark the church that any discerning believer can observe without a Th.D. or a lifetime of pastoral experience? What evidence can we see by which we know that a church's growth is rooted in God's presence?
God's presence always births. From the beginning, God's presence created something out of nothing. God is the only One who creates something from nothing.
His creative process begets that which is radically new (see Is. 43:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:17). As such, we can always expect God to be doing a new thing in our midst. Therefore, the irreducible constant of a presence-driven church is change.
Presence-driven churches are constantly having babies--literally and figuratively. God's presence shows up, and the impossible is birthed.
Remember the example of Abraham and Sarah? They were going to have a baby (see Gen. 16-17). Both laughed. Both tried to birth an Ishmael--their own idea and creation--instead of Isaac, who was God's answer to the future. How many human driven churches find that they are constantly birthing Ishmaels instead of Isaacs?
Let's take a closer look at the process that takes place in a presence-driven ministry.
1. Presence births purpose. Every purpose goes through a gestation process requiring time, trials, tests and tribulations. Birthing never happens immediately after conception.
Human-driven churches, however, are constantly trying to achieve a purpose too soon, and that always results in miscarriage. God's purpose is always for an appointed time (see Eccl. 3:1; John 12:27). Presence-birthed purpose cannot be thwarted or nullified (see Is. 14:27).
Some advocate that God just has one purpose, or one plan, for a church. Such a mind-set limits the limitless God. In a presence-driven church, the church flows in a river of the Spirit moving from one purpose into the next as God's Spirit directs. Each Spirit-breathed purpose builds on the previous one and leads to the next.
A prophetic word may come to a church, discerning a coming purpose. Leadership must be careful to discern the hour of the heralded purpose. To rush into it prematurely can wreak havoc in a church. To procrastinate may bring decay, or even death, to a body. God's given purpose for a particular time requires implementation at the right time, in the right way and with the right motivation.
2. Purpose births plans. The presence-birthed purpose implemented by a church in "the fullness of time" births a plethora of plans. Why? Because of the prodigality of God. God never creates just one star, one wildflower or one snowflake. The God with cattle on a thousand hills always births a purpose explosive with possibilities, potential and an abundance of plans.
Since we humans often defile, destroy or desecrate that which is holy, God has a built-in, fail-safe method of growth for us. We cannot fail because if we "kill" one plan, another immediately replaces it.
Whatever we touch, we can potentially mess up due to our flesh. However, God has such an abundance of plans (see Jer. 29:11; John 10:10) that we cannot fail for lack of plans. Our job is to be persistent in prayer, patient in planning and prepared to apply biblical principles at every turn. Tragically, some churches fail to grow because they give up on God's plans right before a breakthrough.
3. Plans birth productivity. The bottom line for every ministry is fruit (see John 15): people saved, healed and delivered. If a plan ceases to be productive, discard it. When a purpose ceases to birth plans, its season is past. Be still. Rest in God's presence as the new purpose is birthed.
To sum it up, the process in a presence-driven church is God's presence, which births purpose, which births plans, which births productivity.
BEING PRESENCE-DRIVEN
What marks the presence-driven church? Should we examine the matrix of its DNA, what genes would we uncover as proof that, in fact, the Spirit of God is actually driving or propelling the church forward?
What the world and some liberal theologians deem extraordinary and singular or unrepeatable in history is quite the contrary. Acts 1-2 is both normative and indicative of what the presence-driven church looks like in the 21st century. While the various church-growth paradigms mentioned earlier are in operation all around us, they cannot become the foundations on which we build. While they may be the parts of the vehicle, they will never be the power or petrol that drives the vehicle.
So, what are the ingredients of the petrol? Or, what are the genes of the presence-driven church's DNA? The following proposed list is not exhaustive, but it is, at the least, a beginning point for assessing whether or not the church being grown is presence-birthed and on-purpose or simply an Ishmael posing ever so weakly as an Isaac.
These genes mark the church growing in the Spirit for our times. Each gene identified is evidenced in Acts 1-2. The 21 marks of the presence-driven church are:
1. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Not just a touch, but total immersion in the Spirit.
2. Holy Spirit power. Not just any power, but authoritative power that works miracles.
3. Expectation of Jesus' return. Not just lip service about His presence, but an expectation of His return.
4. One-accord unity. Not just a superficial consensus, but an indivisible covenant.
5. Prayer and supplication. Not just vain repetitions, but intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered.
6. Apostolic leadership. Not just leadership within a local body, but bold leadership for the church in a city or region.
7. Filled with the Spirit. Not just led by the Spirit, but driven and empowered by the Spirit.
8. Tongues with Spirit utterance. Not just a loud cacophony, but a river of language flowing under the Spirit's guidance, accomplishing seemingly impossible spiritual breakthroughs and massive conversions.
9. Signs and wonders. Not just to impress the saved, but to witness to the lost.
10. Prophetic witness. Not ministering the prophetic to the saved, but releasing the prophetic to persuade the lost.
11. Bold proclamation and preaching. Not just preaching to the choir, but proclamation from the Word with boldness to please God, not to tickle human ears.
12. Exalting Jesus. Not just a motivational message, but an exaltation and passionate adoration of Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Lord.
13. Repentance with water baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Not just transfer growth, but true conversion with spiritual babies being born frequently.
14. Many being saved daily. Not just rededications, but the lost daily being snatched from hell by the Good Shepherd through bold, unashamed witnessing. Not just adding to the church, but moving into multiplication (see Acts 6:7).
15. Sound doctrine. Not just teaching for knowledge, but for impartation and equipping the saints to do the work of ministry.
16. Fellowship. Not just meeting as strangers in a service, but body ministry one to another.
17. Breaking of bread. Not just a ritual of the Lord's Supper, but a deep communion partaking of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.
18. Holy fear of God. Not just reverence and respect, but a holy fear akin to the fear that moved Noah to build an ark of salvation for his whole household.
19. Faith together. Not just faith trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord, but faith together to hear the incredible, see the invisible and do the impossible together as His body.
20. Sharing to meet needs. Not just a benevolence fund, but a substantial sharing that could meet the deepest physical needs of people.
21. Joyful gladness, simplicity, favor and praise. Not just a warm, fuzzy feeling generated by a great service, but a simple, heartfelt joy that praises God no matter what the circumstance.
Should you boldly dare to go where few churches have gone before, prepare yourself for stringent challenges posed not just by the world or the enemy (though their attacks will be furious). First, brace yourself for attacks from within your church. Those wedded to a human-driven model will fight hard to hold on to it. Those professing to be with you through thick and thin may be the first to take flight when the Spirit is given full liberty to change the church from organization to organism, from institution to instituting, and from internal revival to reconciling the world to Jesus.
Where do you start? The transformation from a human-driven to a presence-driven church begins with the pastor, pastoral team and congregational leadership. The presence-driven church emerges from the presence-driven life of a pastor and leadership team who are totally, radically, irrevocably surrendered to following Jesus. Such a presence-driven life says what Moses declared: " 'If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here'" (Ex. 33:15).
What Is Quiet Time?
Ron Luce
I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. - John 10:14
A quiet time is an intimate, face-to-face, heart-to-heart connection with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's the time when you actually build your relationship with Jesus. Specifically, it is a time for you to get up every day and read the Bible and pray and get closer to Him.
A lot of people say to think to themselves: "I prayed a prayer, but I don't feel closer to God; or I felt really close to God when I was at that retreat or camp, but now I don't feel very close to Him."
You're not going to feel close to anybody if you're not spending time with them.
If you were married and didn't spend time with your spouse, the two of you would not grow any closer. Actually, you would move farther and farther apart.
A quiet time is an expression of your commitment to be a true follower of Christ. It's as if you're saying, "Lord, I'm going to make sure that I don't accidentally get farther and farther away from You. In fact, I'm going to use this time to get closer and closer to You.
I'm going to use it as a time to get fed by You and to get filled up with You and to understand more of You." Before you do anything else, start your day with God. Talk to Him, seek Him in His Word and pray through your day. Make it your top priority.
Maybe you've never had a quiet time with God before. Start thinking about what kind of quiet time you want to have and where you want to have it. Think about what time you need to get up in order to have enough time to read your Bible and pray before you start your day with the world.
Your personal relationship with God is the dynamite that it will take to effect this generation. You will begin to spread the gospel as your character becomes like Christ. This transformation process can only happen in direct relationship with Christ.
The more we know Jesus, and look like Him, the easier it will be to lead people to him.
I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. - John 10:14
A quiet time is an intimate, face-to-face, heart-to-heart connection with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's the time when you actually build your relationship with Jesus. Specifically, it is a time for you to get up every day and read the Bible and pray and get closer to Him.
A lot of people say to think to themselves: "I prayed a prayer, but I don't feel closer to God; or I felt really close to God when I was at that retreat or camp, but now I don't feel very close to Him."
You're not going to feel close to anybody if you're not spending time with them.
If you were married and didn't spend time with your spouse, the two of you would not grow any closer. Actually, you would move farther and farther apart.
A quiet time is an expression of your commitment to be a true follower of Christ. It's as if you're saying, "Lord, I'm going to make sure that I don't accidentally get farther and farther away from You. In fact, I'm going to use this time to get closer and closer to You.
I'm going to use it as a time to get fed by You and to get filled up with You and to understand more of You." Before you do anything else, start your day with God. Talk to Him, seek Him in His Word and pray through your day. Make it your top priority.
Maybe you've never had a quiet time with God before. Start thinking about what kind of quiet time you want to have and where you want to have it. Think about what time you need to get up in order to have enough time to read your Bible and pray before you start your day with the world.
Your personal relationship with God is the dynamite that it will take to effect this generation. You will begin to spread the gospel as your character becomes like Christ. This transformation process can only happen in direct relationship with Christ.
The more we know Jesus, and look like Him, the easier it will be to lead people to him.
Don't Go It Alone
By Che Ahn
Without transparent friendships, ministers are dangerously vulnerable.
Our world values independence. "Making it on your own" is the "highest achievement," and depending on others is viewed as weakness. That's far from a kingdom mentality.
God, the consummate Being who could run the show alone, valued relationship so highly that apart from the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the Father does nothing—and vice versa. The original picture of ideal interdependence is modeled in the Godhead itself.
As a young believer, some of the earliest teachings I heard were about accountability and being "in covenant." Although some believers have shipwrecked on these concepts through wrongful control, these truths, in balance, are vital.
I wonder how the many leaders who have fallen from grace in the last 10 or 15 years would have fared if had they had a close, wise ear to talk to and a kind heart to glean from, or a small group of covenant peers to offer safe counsel.
Christian leaders face closer scrutiny than the average person. The Bible warns that those who teach "shall receive a stricter judgment" (James 3:1). We see such judgment daily in the media. We are often open targets to anyone except a just Savior. That's why I believe those in ministry—perhaps more than any other field—desperately need transparent, effective friendships and means of accountability.
God designed us for relationship—first with Him, and then with each other. Our success is exponentiall when paired with each other: If one can put 1,000 to flight; then two can put 10,000 to flight (see Deut. 32:30).
In contrast, the Bible says that "he who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment" (Prov.18:1). We become dangerously vulnerable without healthy and insightful relationships.
Our busy schedules make it hard to maintain close contact with others. But such shared time is not a luxury; it is a necessity and a protection. Whatever time we spend deepening trusted friendships is an investment more precious than riches.
I encourage you to seek safe and open relationships on two levels. The first is for your personal growth, edification and safety. The second is for that of your ministry. Webster's dictionary defines safe as "free from damage or the risk of damage; giving protection, trustworthy, prudent." We can all use that kind of protection!
On a personal level, my close, covenant friendships are irreplaceable. We are charged to "submit ourselves to one another" (Eph. 5:21, NIV). Doing so provides both safeguards and insights we lack alone. I believe accountability is a part of that submission. It means we are open to being called into account, and we are willing to present or defer to others as appropriate for decisions and counsel in our lives.
On a corporate or ministry level, I believe God created the apostolic realm of the fivefold ministry to provide a safe place of corporate submission to best encourage the growth of His church. There is a very clear blueprint of this plan in the New Testament. I believe apostolic alignment is key to healthy growth, direction and provision. Just like the solo person, a "solo church" is dangerously poised.
If these areas need shoring up in your life, seek God and establish these foundations. I'm confident you'll treasure the results.
Without transparent friendships, ministers are dangerously vulnerable.
Our world values independence. "Making it on your own" is the "highest achievement," and depending on others is viewed as weakness. That's far from a kingdom mentality.
God, the consummate Being who could run the show alone, valued relationship so highly that apart from the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the Father does nothing—and vice versa. The original picture of ideal interdependence is modeled in the Godhead itself.
As a young believer, some of the earliest teachings I heard were about accountability and being "in covenant." Although some believers have shipwrecked on these concepts through wrongful control, these truths, in balance, are vital.
I wonder how the many leaders who have fallen from grace in the last 10 or 15 years would have fared if had they had a close, wise ear to talk to and a kind heart to glean from, or a small group of covenant peers to offer safe counsel.
Christian leaders face closer scrutiny than the average person. The Bible warns that those who teach "shall receive a stricter judgment" (James 3:1). We see such judgment daily in the media. We are often open targets to anyone except a just Savior. That's why I believe those in ministry—perhaps more than any other field—desperately need transparent, effective friendships and means of accountability.
God designed us for relationship—first with Him, and then with each other. Our success is exponentiall when paired with each other: If one can put 1,000 to flight; then two can put 10,000 to flight (see Deut. 32:30).
In contrast, the Bible says that "he who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment" (Prov.18:1). We become dangerously vulnerable without healthy and insightful relationships.
Our busy schedules make it hard to maintain close contact with others. But such shared time is not a luxury; it is a necessity and a protection. Whatever time we spend deepening trusted friendships is an investment more precious than riches.
I encourage you to seek safe and open relationships on two levels. The first is for your personal growth, edification and safety. The second is for that of your ministry. Webster's dictionary defines safe as "free from damage or the risk of damage; giving protection, trustworthy, prudent." We can all use that kind of protection!
On a personal level, my close, covenant friendships are irreplaceable. We are charged to "submit ourselves to one another" (Eph. 5:21, NIV). Doing so provides both safeguards and insights we lack alone. I believe accountability is a part of that submission. It means we are open to being called into account, and we are willing to present or defer to others as appropriate for decisions and counsel in our lives.
On a corporate or ministry level, I believe God created the apostolic realm of the fivefold ministry to provide a safe place of corporate submission to best encourage the growth of His church. There is a very clear blueprint of this plan in the New Testament. I believe apostolic alignment is key to healthy growth, direction and provision. Just like the solo person, a "solo church" is dangerously poised.
If these areas need shoring up in your life, seek God and establish these foundations. I'm confident you'll treasure the results.
Tongues 101
By Jack Hayford
The church needs to look at tonges as a gift, not as a cause for endless theological debate.
It's been five years since this page contained a column titled, "Why Bother About Tongues?" In it, I wasn't suggesting we not bother, but that we acknowledge the significant number of pastors who do, in fact, see tongues as "a bother." I described my own private practice of daily praying and worshiping—singing and speaking with both "the spirit," and also "with the understanding," as Paul affirmed of his own practice in 1 Corinthians 14:15.
Now I stand on the brink of entering my 52nd year of pastoral ministry, and I still lament the entrapment into which many sincere leaders fall when tongues are discussed. It's called the "initial physical evidence doctrine," or the dogma that asserts (with biblical justification) that if a person has truly received the baptism or infilling of the Holy Spirit, the sign confirming that experience will be that he or she "speaks with tongues as the Spirit gives them utterance" (Acts 2:4, NKJV).
The entrapment, as I describe it, is that equally sincere leaders argue there is equal evidence in the Bible of people being filled with the Holy Spirit without mention of their speaking with tongues. Of course they are correct, which has led to a century-long debate that has driven the focus on when people are filled with the Spirit instead of whether or not they are being filled (as Ephesians 5:18 exhorts). Further, it traps all caught in this doctrinal snare into debating the necessity of speaking in tongues as a proof, rather than examining the blessings of praying with tongues as a benefit or resource.
While I have never opposed the initial physical evidence doctrine, neither have I felt I was charged by God to be a judge and decry the testimony of anyone who said they had been filled with the Holy Spirit but had not—or not yet—spoken with tongues. So while I have always practiced, taught and led people to expect to speak with tongues when they are "baptized with the Holy Spirit" (see John 1:33; Acts 1:5), I have urged that expectation as a welcoming of the Spirit's enablement to enlarge my worship of God Almighty. The result has been that at least 80 percent of the members of the congregation I serve have received the blessing of tongues.
Perhaps the best thing about this approach is that it doesn't encourage the idea that the first experience of speaking with tongues is a climax. Rather, it is seen as a commencement into an abiding practice, not a seal of evidence for a required proof. I have sought to show thousands of pastors and other leaders how to lead people toward this fulfilling entrance to the fullness, flow, liberty and language of the Spirit of God.
So this springtime—at the 101st annual observance of the birth of that remarkable, earthshaking awakening called the Azusa Street Revival, I want to offer three possible resources to pastors interested in this ministry.
The first is The Spirit and the Glory, an 80-minute DVD in which I provide introductory instruction and guidance for believers desiring to receive the fullness of the Spirit. It can be ordered through jackhayford.com.
The second is "A Brief on 'Tongues' and the Baptism with the Holy Spirit." Thousands of pastoral leaders have used this resource to help communicate an even-handed yet biblically passionate pursuit of ministering this truth to people in a way that becomes fruitful, non-divisive and empowering to their personal life of prayer and service. It is also at jackhayford.com and is free of charge.
The third is The Beauty of Spiritual Language, a book presented in a manner that has found a welcome among leaders in every denominational environment. It's still in circulation more than 10 years after its initial release. It can be ordered through conventional outlets.
I want to encourage—at the very least—that pastors explore the matter. I cannot believe the Holy Trinity was dabbling in providing a spectator-sport by "allowing" so dramatic an exhibition as took place in Acts. Since Christ introduced this grace of spiritual language, and caused all who were present to experience it on the day He was introducing His church at its birth, it seems dubious the phenomenon of speaking with tongues was meant to be a one-time curiosity, an endlessly inflammatory debate, or a flamboyant display of heavenly showmanship to impress a crowd.
If the Bible is clear on anything, speaking with tongues is a heaven-designed benefit. Interestingly, Paul is the primary advocate of tongues-speaking as a devotional resource for one's private prayer life. So, after his model, my dealing with the subject is in no way a quest to see the triumph of a doctrine. Rather, it is to see the blessing of congregations with a growing band of people who graciously, unpretentiously and faithfully "pray with the spirit and ... also pray with the understanding." Such a church will be blessed in a way Jesus intended His own to know. And such people will be enabled for worship and intercessory prayer in a way that can enhance every disciple and expand each of our prayer lives.
The church needs to look at tonges as a gift, not as a cause for endless theological debate.
It's been five years since this page contained a column titled, "Why Bother About Tongues?" In it, I wasn't suggesting we not bother, but that we acknowledge the significant number of pastors who do, in fact, see tongues as "a bother." I described my own private practice of daily praying and worshiping—singing and speaking with both "the spirit," and also "with the understanding," as Paul affirmed of his own practice in 1 Corinthians 14:15.
Now I stand on the brink of entering my 52nd year of pastoral ministry, and I still lament the entrapment into which many sincere leaders fall when tongues are discussed. It's called the "initial physical evidence doctrine," or the dogma that asserts (with biblical justification) that if a person has truly received the baptism or infilling of the Holy Spirit, the sign confirming that experience will be that he or she "speaks with tongues as the Spirit gives them utterance" (Acts 2:4, NKJV).
The entrapment, as I describe it, is that equally sincere leaders argue there is equal evidence in the Bible of people being filled with the Holy Spirit without mention of their speaking with tongues. Of course they are correct, which has led to a century-long debate that has driven the focus on when people are filled with the Spirit instead of whether or not they are being filled (as Ephesians 5:18 exhorts). Further, it traps all caught in this doctrinal snare into debating the necessity of speaking in tongues as a proof, rather than examining the blessings of praying with tongues as a benefit or resource.
While I have never opposed the initial physical evidence doctrine, neither have I felt I was charged by God to be a judge and decry the testimony of anyone who said they had been filled with the Holy Spirit but had not—or not yet—spoken with tongues. So while I have always practiced, taught and led people to expect to speak with tongues when they are "baptized with the Holy Spirit" (see John 1:33; Acts 1:5), I have urged that expectation as a welcoming of the Spirit's enablement to enlarge my worship of God Almighty. The result has been that at least 80 percent of the members of the congregation I serve have received the blessing of tongues.
Perhaps the best thing about this approach is that it doesn't encourage the idea that the first experience of speaking with tongues is a climax. Rather, it is seen as a commencement into an abiding practice, not a seal of evidence for a required proof. I have sought to show thousands of pastors and other leaders how to lead people toward this fulfilling entrance to the fullness, flow, liberty and language of the Spirit of God.
So this springtime—at the 101st annual observance of the birth of that remarkable, earthshaking awakening called the Azusa Street Revival, I want to offer three possible resources to pastors interested in this ministry.
The first is The Spirit and the Glory, an 80-minute DVD in which I provide introductory instruction and guidance for believers desiring to receive the fullness of the Spirit. It can be ordered through jackhayford.com.
The second is "A Brief on 'Tongues' and the Baptism with the Holy Spirit." Thousands of pastoral leaders have used this resource to help communicate an even-handed yet biblically passionate pursuit of ministering this truth to people in a way that becomes fruitful, non-divisive and empowering to their personal life of prayer and service. It is also at jackhayford.com and is free of charge.
The third is The Beauty of Spiritual Language, a book presented in a manner that has found a welcome among leaders in every denominational environment. It's still in circulation more than 10 years after its initial release. It can be ordered through conventional outlets.
I want to encourage—at the very least—that pastors explore the matter. I cannot believe the Holy Trinity was dabbling in providing a spectator-sport by "allowing" so dramatic an exhibition as took place in Acts. Since Christ introduced this grace of spiritual language, and caused all who were present to experience it on the day He was introducing His church at its birth, it seems dubious the phenomenon of speaking with tongues was meant to be a one-time curiosity, an endlessly inflammatory debate, or a flamboyant display of heavenly showmanship to impress a crowd.
If the Bible is clear on anything, speaking with tongues is a heaven-designed benefit. Interestingly, Paul is the primary advocate of tongues-speaking as a devotional resource for one's private prayer life. So, after his model, my dealing with the subject is in no way a quest to see the triumph of a doctrine. Rather, it is to see the blessing of congregations with a growing band of people who graciously, unpretentiously and faithfully "pray with the spirit and ... also pray with the understanding." Such a church will be blessed in a way Jesus intended His own to know. And such people will be enabled for worship and intercessory prayer in a way that can enhance every disciple and expand each of our prayer lives.
It's About the Kingdom
By Sunday Adelaja
Too much light burns the eyes. Too much salt burns the tongue. When Christians make church the focal point of their lives and ministry, they burn each other like an oversalted dish and blind one another like a room full of spotlights. Salt and light aren't meant for themselves. We aren't called the salt of the church but the salt of the earth. We aren't called the light of the church but the light of the world (see Matt. 5:13-14). And we aren't called to be church-minded; rather, first and foremost, we're called to seek God's kingdom.
When a church neglects the Great Commission and becomes self-absorbed, it falls into several predictable traps:
Infighting. When a church loses focus, people get busy fighting among themselves. A church that has an outward-looking kingdom focus simply has no bored people. Everybody is busy in the proper direction. Nobody has time for internal squabbles or unimportant questions.
Egocentric leadership. Having met with billionaires and famous people, I've found it's actually easier to approach many of them than it is to approach some pastors. God help us!
Size focus. It's OK to talk numbers and to rejoice in God's blessing of numerical growth, but it's childish to revel in it and compare ourselves with others. If a church grows in numbers, the point is to glorify Christ.
Egocentric followers. Egocentric leaders produce egocentric followers. When a pastor uses a church to meet his own needs, this trickles down to people in the pews, who begin to see the church as existing to meet their personal needs. A culture of self-gratification grips the church.
Teaching fragments of the truth. Unless a church continually pursues a total kingdom agenda, it's easy to fall into teaching partial truth. But the kingdom and its gospel is a totality.
So how do we create a church culture that's not insulated and self-absorbed? It begins by understanding that to be kingdom-minded is to reject the world's way of thinking and live by superior principles from a superior place. Our hearts and minds are consumed with better things, yet we are to thrust ourselves into the world because that is where we set people free. We don't run from problems; we run to them. We have the answer for every problem in the world. That is our Great Commission calling—through active application of kingdom principles. Here are two of those principles that can help any church become a kingdom-minded, problem-solving powerhouse:
1. Repentance. You can only transform something if you aren't conformed to it (see Rom. 12:2). The problem for many people is they don't fully reject the principles of this world. They try to mix kingdoms. They use principles of the kingdom of darkness to establish their rule.
Many preachers don't preach repentance, but Jesus did (see Mark 1:15). To repent means to change your mind and your belief system as often as needed. It's the process we go through to become kingdom-minded. We repent because the kingdom of heaven is here. It is about rejecting the old and embracing the new. There is no life apart from the kingdom.
2. Love. If I could sum up kingdom-mindedness in one word, it would be love. As we shift away from church-mindedness, we need to realize that without being identified with God and being kingdom-minded, we'll simply go back to our natural ways and won't change anything in our world. Love people! Love them no matter who they are or what they do. Love people regardless of their faults. Love them unconditionally.
Many ministers can teach, but fewer can love. That's why many churches remain so small and irrelevant. People don't come to church to be taught. They're seeking love, and that's our first commission. Let's be kingdom-minded and embody the nature and culture of our King, which starts with love.
Too much light burns the eyes. Too much salt burns the tongue. When Christians make church the focal point of their lives and ministry, they burn each other like an oversalted dish and blind one another like a room full of spotlights. Salt and light aren't meant for themselves. We aren't called the salt of the church but the salt of the earth. We aren't called the light of the church but the light of the world (see Matt. 5:13-14). And we aren't called to be church-minded; rather, first and foremost, we're called to seek God's kingdom.
When a church neglects the Great Commission and becomes self-absorbed, it falls into several predictable traps:
Infighting. When a church loses focus, people get busy fighting among themselves. A church that has an outward-looking kingdom focus simply has no bored people. Everybody is busy in the proper direction. Nobody has time for internal squabbles or unimportant questions.
Egocentric leadership. Having met with billionaires and famous people, I've found it's actually easier to approach many of them than it is to approach some pastors. God help us!
Size focus. It's OK to talk numbers and to rejoice in God's blessing of numerical growth, but it's childish to revel in it and compare ourselves with others. If a church grows in numbers, the point is to glorify Christ.
Egocentric followers. Egocentric leaders produce egocentric followers. When a pastor uses a church to meet his own needs, this trickles down to people in the pews, who begin to see the church as existing to meet their personal needs. A culture of self-gratification grips the church.
Teaching fragments of the truth. Unless a church continually pursues a total kingdom agenda, it's easy to fall into teaching partial truth. But the kingdom and its gospel is a totality.
So how do we create a church culture that's not insulated and self-absorbed? It begins by understanding that to be kingdom-minded is to reject the world's way of thinking and live by superior principles from a superior place. Our hearts and minds are consumed with better things, yet we are to thrust ourselves into the world because that is where we set people free. We don't run from problems; we run to them. We have the answer for every problem in the world. That is our Great Commission calling—through active application of kingdom principles. Here are two of those principles that can help any church become a kingdom-minded, problem-solving powerhouse:
1. Repentance. You can only transform something if you aren't conformed to it (see Rom. 12:2). The problem for many people is they don't fully reject the principles of this world. They try to mix kingdoms. They use principles of the kingdom of darkness to establish their rule.
Many preachers don't preach repentance, but Jesus did (see Mark 1:15). To repent means to change your mind and your belief system as often as needed. It's the process we go through to become kingdom-minded. We repent because the kingdom of heaven is here. It is about rejecting the old and embracing the new. There is no life apart from the kingdom.
2. Love. If I could sum up kingdom-mindedness in one word, it would be love. As we shift away from church-mindedness, we need to realize that without being identified with God and being kingdom-minded, we'll simply go back to our natural ways and won't change anything in our world. Love people! Love them no matter who they are or what they do. Love people regardless of their faults. Love them unconditionally.
Many ministers can teach, but fewer can love. That's why many churches remain so small and irrelevant. People don't come to church to be taught. They're seeking love, and that's our first commission. Let's be kingdom-minded and embody the nature and culture of our King, which starts with love.
So That's Why My Church Is Full of Babies!
As a pastor, you naturally want to see those you lead become spiritually mature followers of Christ. But if your congregation is still full of infant believers, here's something to chew on from the latest Barna study: You may be the reason they're still that way.
According to a survey of more than 1,000 Christians and a secondary one of more than 600 pastors, more than half of all churchgoers can't describe how their church defines a mature believer. An overwhelming 81 percent believe spiritual maturity correlates to "trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible," and even among born-again Christians (a small subset of the entire group polled), only 30 percent mentioned having a relationship with Jesus as one of the characteristics of spiritual maturity. Other elements included living a moral lifestyle (14 percent), applying the Bible (12 percent) and sharing your faith with others (6 percent).
Possibly more revealing than these statistics is the disconnect that exists within church leadership. Among pastors surveyed, nearly 90 percent said a lack of spiritual maturity was one of the nation's biggest problems—yet a minority of them stated that this wasn't the case in their own church.
Fewer than half of the churches represented have written documents defining, describing or outlining what a mature Christian is like. In addition, most pastors add to this ambiguity by using vague biblical references when actually trying to measure spiritual maturity. When asked to identify the most important portions of the Bible that define spiritual maturity, more than three-fourths gave a generic response: one-third simply answered "the whole Bible," 17 percent said "the gospels," 15 percent said "the New Testament," and 10 percent offered "Paul's letters" as their source of definition. Just one-fifth of pastors cited specific Bible verses that speak of a mature believer.
"America has a spiritual depth problem partly because the faith community does not have a robust definition of its spiritual goals," said Barna Group president David Kinnaman. "The study shows the need for new types of spiritual metrics. One new metric might be a renewed effort on the part of leaders to articulate the outcomes of spiritual growth."
Such an effort begins with most pastors recognizing their systems of measurement is lacking. Yet further indicating the disconnect from reality, the majority of pastors surveyed were moderately satisfied with their current methods and standards. (Granted, only 9 percent were completely satisfied with how they measured and assess spiritual growth of those they lead.)
In light of this, Kinnaman offered a warning to any grow-quick solutions: "As people begin to realize that the concepts and practices of spiritual maturity have been underdeveloped, the Christian community is likely to enter a time of renewed emphasis on discipleship, soul care, the tensions of truth and grace, the so-called ‘fruits’ of the spiritual life and the practices of spiritual disciplines. A related challenge is that as spiritual formation becomes ‘trendy’ it will inevitably become ‘watered down’ with products that over-promise or are simply counter-productive. Leaders have to take on this issue more effectively, and part of that task is weeding out the good from bad." [barna.org, 5/11/09]
According to a survey of more than 1,000 Christians and a secondary one of more than 600 pastors, more than half of all churchgoers can't describe how their church defines a mature believer. An overwhelming 81 percent believe spiritual maturity correlates to "trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible," and even among born-again Christians (a small subset of the entire group polled), only 30 percent mentioned having a relationship with Jesus as one of the characteristics of spiritual maturity. Other elements included living a moral lifestyle (14 percent), applying the Bible (12 percent) and sharing your faith with others (6 percent).
Possibly more revealing than these statistics is the disconnect that exists within church leadership. Among pastors surveyed, nearly 90 percent said a lack of spiritual maturity was one of the nation's biggest problems—yet a minority of them stated that this wasn't the case in their own church.
Fewer than half of the churches represented have written documents defining, describing or outlining what a mature Christian is like. In addition, most pastors add to this ambiguity by using vague biblical references when actually trying to measure spiritual maturity. When asked to identify the most important portions of the Bible that define spiritual maturity, more than three-fourths gave a generic response: one-third simply answered "the whole Bible," 17 percent said "the gospels," 15 percent said "the New Testament," and 10 percent offered "Paul's letters" as their source of definition. Just one-fifth of pastors cited specific Bible verses that speak of a mature believer.
"America has a spiritual depth problem partly because the faith community does not have a robust definition of its spiritual goals," said Barna Group president David Kinnaman. "The study shows the need for new types of spiritual metrics. One new metric might be a renewed effort on the part of leaders to articulate the outcomes of spiritual growth."
Such an effort begins with most pastors recognizing their systems of measurement is lacking. Yet further indicating the disconnect from reality, the majority of pastors surveyed were moderately satisfied with their current methods and standards. (Granted, only 9 percent were completely satisfied with how they measured and assess spiritual growth of those they lead.)
In light of this, Kinnaman offered a warning to any grow-quick solutions: "As people begin to realize that the concepts and practices of spiritual maturity have been underdeveloped, the Christian community is likely to enter a time of renewed emphasis on discipleship, soul care, the tensions of truth and grace, the so-called ‘fruits’ of the spiritual life and the practices of spiritual disciplines. A related challenge is that as spiritual formation becomes ‘trendy’ it will inevitably become ‘watered down’ with products that over-promise or are simply counter-productive. Leaders have to take on this issue more effectively, and part of that task is weeding out the good from bad." [barna.org, 5/11/09]
10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe
Many Christians, new and seasoned alike, tend to bank on promises that God never made, says one pastor.
So when God doesn't come through on those "promises," some are likely to become angry at God.
And "that to me as a pastor over all my years is always one of the saddest things," says Larry Osborne, teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, Calif.
Osborne, whose church draws over 7,000 people, is hoping to spare a lot of Jesus followers from that anger. He’s also hoping Christians will peruse Scripture more and align themselves with what God really says rather than the “word on the street.”
So he spelled out some of the "dumb things smart Christians believe" – ten, to be specific – in a new book.
He calls those "dumb things" spiritual urban legends – a belief, story, assumption, or truism that gets passed around as fact even in Sunday-school class or a Bible study.
"What happens ... is somebody passes out a truism that sounds good and we've just heard it so many times [that] we don't bother to check it out," Osborne explained to The Christian Post. "And that's the source of most of these urban legends. They're true partially, but they're not true completely."
One of the partial truths many Christians fall victim to is the belief that living God's way will bring good fortune.
"The Bible makes no such promise," Osborne writes in 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.
The 57-year-old pastor recalls one moment when a church attendee named Tim waited in line to talk to him after a weekend worship service.
"[A]s soon as I said, 'Hey, what's up?' he let loose," Osborne writes. "'Bleep your bleeping God!' he exclaimed. 'I'm done. Your Jesus hasn't done me a bit of good. I've tried to clean up my act. I even tried your damn tithing thing. It doesn't work. I just lost my job. My wife needs surgery, and now I don't have any insurance. Where's your bleeping God when we need him?'"
"After a few more expletives, he finally turned and stormed out. I never saw him again."
Osborne notes that it wasn't a series of "tough breaks" or "unfortunate events" that caused Tim's tirade. Rather, it was "a set of unfounded and unrealistic expectations about what it means to follow God and what should happen when we venture to do so" that set him off.
Tim's case isn't unique. Many Christians expect things to work out when living God's way, Osborne says.
"They all figure that a little bit of God might bring a little bit of luck. So why not rub the bottle and see if a genie pops out?" he writes.
Holding such a belief, however, could prove to be spiritually dangerous. Moreover, it results in a lot of "pretenders or dabblers" who try to play by the rules of Christianity but not really believe in what they're abiding.
"When we assume, imply, or promise that God is supposed to bring us good luck and lots of success, we're set up for deep disappointment and spiritual cynicism," he writes. "Even worse, we risk turning the King of kings into little more than a good-luck charm."
Osborne also warns that those who introduce Christ to others and testify of only the "abundant Christian life" while downplaying the "harder teachings of Jesus" set the stage for disillusionment when things go awry.
Following Christ can be tough and having faith isn't always going to fix everything.
It's another spiritual urban legend – that faith can fix anything – and another one that can lead to an angry outburst or a spiritual meltdown.
As a pastor, this is one of the most common urban legends Osborne has encountered.
Many Christians believe ridding themselves of doubts and having clear positive thinking – which is how many define "faith" – will lead to their desired outcome such as physical healing. But having faith doesn't always lead to victory, at least not in the earthly sense.
While the Bible famously "tells of kingdoms won, lions muzzled, flames quenched, weaknesses turned to strength, enemies routed, [and] the dead raised," it also speaks of people of faith who were "tortured, jeered, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, sawed in two, and put to death by the sword."
They all lived by faith "yet their faith didn't fix anything," Osborne points out.
What faith does promise, however, is forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.
"Faith is ... not an impenetrable shield that protects us from life's hardships and trials. It's not a magic potion that removes every mess," Osborne writes in his book. "It's designed to guide us on a path called righteousness."
Faith, Osborne says, is trusting enough to obey.
The other eight spiritual urban legends he lists are: forgiving means forgetting, a godly home guarantees godly kids, God has a blueprint for my life, Christians shouldn't judge, everything happens for a reason, let your conscience be your guide, a valley means a wrong turn, and dead people go to a better place.
The common thread through all of them, Osborne said, is the "disillusionment that comes when we bank of promises that God actually never made."
They're "partial truths that we shouldn’t be building the whole house on," said Osborne, who has been teaching a four-week series on urban legends – which include more than ten – over the past summers.
While Christians are not likely to buy into all of them, most may have one or two that they fall victim to, the North Coast pastor believes.
"Sometimes we treat the Bible as if it's a series of sound bites and little sayings that we can put on t-shirts, coffee cups and posters," Osborne pointed out. "But it's a big book."
"We need to look at what the Bible says about any subject in all of its passages. And when we do that we'll avoid these urban legends."
So when God doesn't come through on those "promises," some are likely to become angry at God.
And "that to me as a pastor over all my years is always one of the saddest things," says Larry Osborne, teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, Calif.
Osborne, whose church draws over 7,000 people, is hoping to spare a lot of Jesus followers from that anger. He’s also hoping Christians will peruse Scripture more and align themselves with what God really says rather than the “word on the street.”
So he spelled out some of the "dumb things smart Christians believe" – ten, to be specific – in a new book.
He calls those "dumb things" spiritual urban legends – a belief, story, assumption, or truism that gets passed around as fact even in Sunday-school class or a Bible study.
"What happens ... is somebody passes out a truism that sounds good and we've just heard it so many times [that] we don't bother to check it out," Osborne explained to The Christian Post. "And that's the source of most of these urban legends. They're true partially, but they're not true completely."
One of the partial truths many Christians fall victim to is the belief that living God's way will bring good fortune.
"The Bible makes no such promise," Osborne writes in 10 Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe.
The 57-year-old pastor recalls one moment when a church attendee named Tim waited in line to talk to him after a weekend worship service.
"[A]s soon as I said, 'Hey, what's up?' he let loose," Osborne writes. "'Bleep your bleeping God!' he exclaimed. 'I'm done. Your Jesus hasn't done me a bit of good. I've tried to clean up my act. I even tried your damn tithing thing. It doesn't work. I just lost my job. My wife needs surgery, and now I don't have any insurance. Where's your bleeping God when we need him?'"
"After a few more expletives, he finally turned and stormed out. I never saw him again."
Osborne notes that it wasn't a series of "tough breaks" or "unfortunate events" that caused Tim's tirade. Rather, it was "a set of unfounded and unrealistic expectations about what it means to follow God and what should happen when we venture to do so" that set him off.
Tim's case isn't unique. Many Christians expect things to work out when living God's way, Osborne says.
"They all figure that a little bit of God might bring a little bit of luck. So why not rub the bottle and see if a genie pops out?" he writes.
Holding such a belief, however, could prove to be spiritually dangerous. Moreover, it results in a lot of "pretenders or dabblers" who try to play by the rules of Christianity but not really believe in what they're abiding.
"When we assume, imply, or promise that God is supposed to bring us good luck and lots of success, we're set up for deep disappointment and spiritual cynicism," he writes. "Even worse, we risk turning the King of kings into little more than a good-luck charm."
Osborne also warns that those who introduce Christ to others and testify of only the "abundant Christian life" while downplaying the "harder teachings of Jesus" set the stage for disillusionment when things go awry.
Following Christ can be tough and having faith isn't always going to fix everything.
It's another spiritual urban legend – that faith can fix anything – and another one that can lead to an angry outburst or a spiritual meltdown.
As a pastor, this is one of the most common urban legends Osborne has encountered.
Many Christians believe ridding themselves of doubts and having clear positive thinking – which is how many define "faith" – will lead to their desired outcome such as physical healing. But having faith doesn't always lead to victory, at least not in the earthly sense.
While the Bible famously "tells of kingdoms won, lions muzzled, flames quenched, weaknesses turned to strength, enemies routed, [and] the dead raised," it also speaks of people of faith who were "tortured, jeered, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, sawed in two, and put to death by the sword."
They all lived by faith "yet their faith didn't fix anything," Osborne points out.
What faith does promise, however, is forgiveness and the gift of eternal life.
"Faith is ... not an impenetrable shield that protects us from life's hardships and trials. It's not a magic potion that removes every mess," Osborne writes in his book. "It's designed to guide us on a path called righteousness."
Faith, Osborne says, is trusting enough to obey.
The other eight spiritual urban legends he lists are: forgiving means forgetting, a godly home guarantees godly kids, God has a blueprint for my life, Christians shouldn't judge, everything happens for a reason, let your conscience be your guide, a valley means a wrong turn, and dead people go to a better place.
The common thread through all of them, Osborne said, is the "disillusionment that comes when we bank of promises that God actually never made."
They're "partial truths that we shouldn’t be building the whole house on," said Osborne, who has been teaching a four-week series on urban legends – which include more than ten – over the past summers.
While Christians are not likely to buy into all of them, most may have one or two that they fall victim to, the North Coast pastor believes.
"Sometimes we treat the Bible as if it's a series of sound bites and little sayings that we can put on t-shirts, coffee cups and posters," Osborne pointed out. "But it's a big book."
"We need to look at what the Bible says about any subject in all of its passages. And when we do that we'll avoid these urban legends."
The God of Relationships
For the love of Christ compels us; because we judge thus: that if one died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them, and rose again. (2 Cor. 5:14-15)
The Bible is all about relationships. Obviously, the first example would be Jesus. When he was asked to sum up the God-centered life, he said that it was quite simple. Love God; love others (Mark 12:28-31).
I concur with St Augustine, one of the early Church Fathers, who observed that everything written in Scripture is meant to teach us how to love either God or our neighbor.
The triune God is a personal being who exists as a joyous community of humility, servant hood and mutual submission. Not only does God exist in a perfect community Himself, He paid a great price to make it possible for us to enter a relationship with Him through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now He wants this relationship to be made visible in our relationships with others. God knows that not only are we unable to save ourselves, but we are also incapable of truly loving others. So He went beyond offering us salvation; He miraculously infuses us with the ability to love others properly (Rom 5:6).
God created us in His image – with the ability to connect with others in deep and meaningful ways. Yet it did not take long for us to learn how to disconnect and live as enemies. He created relational beings, beautiful and good. Shortly thereafter humans added a creation of their own: revenge. As a consequence, pain, betrayal and loss are now inevitable in a fallen world. But there are two ways to live in such a world: the way of revenge or the way of reconciliation. One road leads to death; the other road leads to life. Make the right choice.
The Bible is all about relationships. Obviously, the first example would be Jesus. When he was asked to sum up the God-centered life, he said that it was quite simple. Love God; love others (Mark 12:28-31).
I concur with St Augustine, one of the early Church Fathers, who observed that everything written in Scripture is meant to teach us how to love either God or our neighbor.
The triune God is a personal being who exists as a joyous community of humility, servant hood and mutual submission. Not only does God exist in a perfect community Himself, He paid a great price to make it possible for us to enter a relationship with Him through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now He wants this relationship to be made visible in our relationships with others. God knows that not only are we unable to save ourselves, but we are also incapable of truly loving others. So He went beyond offering us salvation; He miraculously infuses us with the ability to love others properly (Rom 5:6).
God created us in His image – with the ability to connect with others in deep and meaningful ways. Yet it did not take long for us to learn how to disconnect and live as enemies. He created relational beings, beautiful and good. Shortly thereafter humans added a creation of their own: revenge. As a consequence, pain, betrayal and loss are now inevitable in a fallen world. But there are two ways to live in such a world: the way of revenge or the way of reconciliation. One road leads to death; the other road leads to life. Make the right choice.
Transitioning To Power: A Look At Pastor Fred Price Jr.
The following article was originally posted in this month's edition of EIF Magazine.
It was 30 years ago in March that Dr. Frederick K.C. Price held his infant son up during a church dedication service and said, “Frederick K. Price, I offer you up unto the Lord our God and dedicate you to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Moving words—especially considering that his birth was a prophecy come to life. When Dr. Betty was pregnant with Frederick, she received a prophesy from Kenneth Hagin at an All Faiths Crusade at the Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. “God has restored what the devil stole from you many years ago. This child will be a blessing to you and will help you in the ministry,” prophesied Hagin. It was truly a profound moment for the Price’s whose first-born son Frederick K.C. Price, Jr. was struck by an automobile when he was only eight years old. He died of his injuries.
God indeed brought that prophecy to pass and is using the life of Dr. Price’s son in a magnificent way. On March 15, 2009, Pastor Fred Price will officially be installed as Pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center, the church his father started more than 35 years ago. The date is special because it also marks Pastor Fred’s 30th birthday.
“Fred will start his public ministry at the same age as Jesus did. That is prophetic,” said Dr. Price.
The decision was announced in November 2008 during the church’s 35th anniversary. While Dr. Price won’t be handling the senior pastor duties anymore, that doesn’t mean he will be disappearing from the scene. Dr. Price will still be doing what he loves best—teaching on Sundays and during the weekly Bible Study, working with the board of directors and mentoring his son.
Much of this sounds like a scene from the movie “Lion King,” And Pastor Fred agrees that it feels like it too. “Lion King is a good illustration,” he points out. “If you remember at the beginning, Rafiki, the little prophet monkey holds Simba up on behalf of Mufasa and his wife. At the end of the movie, he holds the new little baby up for Simba. Of course in this case Mufasa is not dying, he’s not going anywhere. I did see the transition like that. It’s my time to be king, so to speak. I’m really okay with it. I look forward to it because it looks like a challenge. I have confidence in some of the things that I’ll implement.
Before I implement ideas, I’m going to implement me. I think that when I implement me, God is going to use me in some interesting ways. I’m up for it. I’m not nervous. I’m not scared. I’m not frightened. I’m in anticipation of it.”
Chalk up the lack of fear to the fact that Pastor Fred has been working in the ministry as a pastor for the past six years and that his father will be here to help teach him the ropes.
“I think this situation is probably how it’s supposed to be,” said Pastor Fred. “I even look at it like this. God had interaction with man in the earth, it wasn’t like the Father was here and then He left. Then Jesus came and then Jesus was here and He left and then the Spirit came.
The Spirit of the Lord had interaction with man in the Old Testament. Pre-incarnate Jesus had interaction with man in the Old Testament. Then you see the Spirit descending upon Jesus in His earthly ministry. Jesus and the Holy Spirit had interaction with man. It wasn’t like the current boss was here and then he leaves. I think this is how it’s supposed to be. As he’s phasing out, he’s phasing me in. He’s still here to mentor me and teach me and show me the ropes. That’s the ideal situation anyway.”
Currently, Pastor Fred is taking the time to learn the ropes. While teaching is nothing new, the administrative side of pastoring is a new phase for this husband and father of one. His days have become full with mandatory meetings, officiating the majority of weddings and memorial services and counseling.
While Pastor Fred is excited about the new responsibilities that await him, one thing he’s had to face are naysayers—those who think he may be too young or inexperienced to lead such a large and influential ministry.
Naysayers have always been fuel for me,” he explains. “I encourage the naysayers to categorize and list everything that they think I should have or should be doing. My only reply to them is watch. They’ll see.”
Truth is, the younger Price has received far more accolades than criticism.
“I’ve seen some letters with my own eyes that have been negative. Some people are looking for a flaw. But most of the response if positive, probably because of the way he presented me to the people. It wasn’t like, ‘here’s your new pastor, I’m gone.’
People were able to see me grow. All of that is what makes the transition easier. On top of that, I respect the old school. I respect my elders. People always tell me that my wisdom is beyond my years.
That’s just because of my surroundings. That’s why it’s making the transition a lot smoother. I can’t tell you how many notes I’ve received from people who tell me that they have been here from the beginning with my father and they served under him and are looking forward to serving under me. That’s very humbling so the naysayers are very few.”
Pastor Fred accepted the call to preach right out of high school and went to attend the Cottonwood Christian Center School of Ministry as an alternative to Long Beach State where he had been enrolled. Two years later in 2002, he graduated from Cottonwood and became a licensed minister. That same year, he preached his first sermon in the FaithDome titled, “Does God Show Favoritism?”
The following year, in 2003, Frederick was ordained by his father Dr. Price. His life has pretty much been ministry work, though he admits that one time he did try his hand as a salesman pushing Cutco knives. Though he grew up a pastor’s child and ministry work has been all he knows, Pastor Fred is more than well-rounded.
A serious gamer, he’s into Xbox 360 and counts Call of Duty: World at War as his favorite video game at the moment. He’s also very much a bookworm and is into a bevy of subjects from his father’s books to fantasy and science fiction to history and information.
His goal now is to continue building the ministry his father established while stamping his signature as pastor.
“I’m a free-thinking techie. I observe differently but intuitively and in detail the way he does. I may pick different things out. I think I’ll be a leader in the same manner that he is. Excellence will still be the cusp of the ministry.
“Here’s I want: to see not just new membership and seats being filled but new life being breathed back into the ministry,” Pastor Price says. “I want to see new life—a youthful feel. A new excitement—that’s really what I’m looking forward to. My pastoring—on Sundays people mostly see me teaching. They know that I can teach but the pastoring are the other things—dealing with the people, making the hard decisions—things like that. I want to be a seasoned pastor. I want to see myself seasoned in a shorter time than what would be expected.”
It was 30 years ago in March that Dr. Frederick K.C. Price held his infant son up during a church dedication service and said, “Frederick K. Price, I offer you up unto the Lord our God and dedicate you to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Moving words—especially considering that his birth was a prophecy come to life. When Dr. Betty was pregnant with Frederick, she received a prophesy from Kenneth Hagin at an All Faiths Crusade at the Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. “God has restored what the devil stole from you many years ago. This child will be a blessing to you and will help you in the ministry,” prophesied Hagin. It was truly a profound moment for the Price’s whose first-born son Frederick K.C. Price, Jr. was struck by an automobile when he was only eight years old. He died of his injuries.
God indeed brought that prophecy to pass and is using the life of Dr. Price’s son in a magnificent way. On March 15, 2009, Pastor Fred Price will officially be installed as Pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center, the church his father started more than 35 years ago. The date is special because it also marks Pastor Fred’s 30th birthday.
“Fred will start his public ministry at the same age as Jesus did. That is prophetic,” said Dr. Price.
The decision was announced in November 2008 during the church’s 35th anniversary. While Dr. Price won’t be handling the senior pastor duties anymore, that doesn’t mean he will be disappearing from the scene. Dr. Price will still be doing what he loves best—teaching on Sundays and during the weekly Bible Study, working with the board of directors and mentoring his son.
Much of this sounds like a scene from the movie “Lion King,” And Pastor Fred agrees that it feels like it too. “Lion King is a good illustration,” he points out. “If you remember at the beginning, Rafiki, the little prophet monkey holds Simba up on behalf of Mufasa and his wife. At the end of the movie, he holds the new little baby up for Simba. Of course in this case Mufasa is not dying, he’s not going anywhere. I did see the transition like that. It’s my time to be king, so to speak. I’m really okay with it. I look forward to it because it looks like a challenge. I have confidence in some of the things that I’ll implement.
Before I implement ideas, I’m going to implement me. I think that when I implement me, God is going to use me in some interesting ways. I’m up for it. I’m not nervous. I’m not scared. I’m not frightened. I’m in anticipation of it.”
Chalk up the lack of fear to the fact that Pastor Fred has been working in the ministry as a pastor for the past six years and that his father will be here to help teach him the ropes.
“I think this situation is probably how it’s supposed to be,” said Pastor Fred. “I even look at it like this. God had interaction with man in the earth, it wasn’t like the Father was here and then He left. Then Jesus came and then Jesus was here and He left and then the Spirit came.
The Spirit of the Lord had interaction with man in the Old Testament. Pre-incarnate Jesus had interaction with man in the Old Testament. Then you see the Spirit descending upon Jesus in His earthly ministry. Jesus and the Holy Spirit had interaction with man. It wasn’t like the current boss was here and then he leaves. I think this is how it’s supposed to be. As he’s phasing out, he’s phasing me in. He’s still here to mentor me and teach me and show me the ropes. That’s the ideal situation anyway.”
Currently, Pastor Fred is taking the time to learn the ropes. While teaching is nothing new, the administrative side of pastoring is a new phase for this husband and father of one. His days have become full with mandatory meetings, officiating the majority of weddings and memorial services and counseling.
While Pastor Fred is excited about the new responsibilities that await him, one thing he’s had to face are naysayers—those who think he may be too young or inexperienced to lead such a large and influential ministry.
Naysayers have always been fuel for me,” he explains. “I encourage the naysayers to categorize and list everything that they think I should have or should be doing. My only reply to them is watch. They’ll see.”
Truth is, the younger Price has received far more accolades than criticism.
“I’ve seen some letters with my own eyes that have been negative. Some people are looking for a flaw. But most of the response if positive, probably because of the way he presented me to the people. It wasn’t like, ‘here’s your new pastor, I’m gone.’
People were able to see me grow. All of that is what makes the transition easier. On top of that, I respect the old school. I respect my elders. People always tell me that my wisdom is beyond my years.
That’s just because of my surroundings. That’s why it’s making the transition a lot smoother. I can’t tell you how many notes I’ve received from people who tell me that they have been here from the beginning with my father and they served under him and are looking forward to serving under me. That’s very humbling so the naysayers are very few.”
Pastor Fred accepted the call to preach right out of high school and went to attend the Cottonwood Christian Center School of Ministry as an alternative to Long Beach State where he had been enrolled. Two years later in 2002, he graduated from Cottonwood and became a licensed minister. That same year, he preached his first sermon in the FaithDome titled, “Does God Show Favoritism?”
The following year, in 2003, Frederick was ordained by his father Dr. Price. His life has pretty much been ministry work, though he admits that one time he did try his hand as a salesman pushing Cutco knives. Though he grew up a pastor’s child and ministry work has been all he knows, Pastor Fred is more than well-rounded.
A serious gamer, he’s into Xbox 360 and counts Call of Duty: World at War as his favorite video game at the moment. He’s also very much a bookworm and is into a bevy of subjects from his father’s books to fantasy and science fiction to history and information.
His goal now is to continue building the ministry his father established while stamping his signature as pastor.
“I’m a free-thinking techie. I observe differently but intuitively and in detail the way he does. I may pick different things out. I think I’ll be a leader in the same manner that he is. Excellence will still be the cusp of the ministry.
“Here’s I want: to see not just new membership and seats being filled but new life being breathed back into the ministry,” Pastor Price says. “I want to see new life—a youthful feel. A new excitement—that’s really what I’m looking forward to. My pastoring—on Sundays people mostly see me teaching. They know that I can teach but the pastoring are the other things—dealing with the people, making the hard decisions—things like that. I want to be a seasoned pastor. I want to see myself seasoned in a shorter time than what would be expected.”
Friday, May 15, 2009
Shout grace!
"Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain; and he will bring forth the cap stone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!” (Zech. 4:7).
Grace and Mercy are like two heads of the same coin. Mercy is God withholding the punishment I deserve while Grace is God giving me blessing or good that I do not deserve. Some of us appear to be more sin-conscious than grace-conscious.
God's unmerited favour is only one aspect of grace. Francis Frangipane says “Grace is God's power, motivated by His mercy, working to fulfill His compassion”. It is God’s promise to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Zerubbabel had mountains in his life that were too much for him. He had a task of that was beyond his abilities. In the struggle of the battle, weariness settled on the governor. So, the Lord gave Zechariah a promise for Zerubbabel. He said,
"‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
God was saying, "You have laboured, your enemies are many and they are strong, but this work I've set before you isn't about your abilities; it's about what I can do working through you." Likewise, our salvation today isn't about our works. It’s about believing in the finished work of Christ on the Cross.
God promised His Spirit would help Zerubbabel, and when it was done, multitudes would be shouting "Grace, grace" at the finished work (Zech.4:7).
Don't run from the mountains in your life; face them in faith---and then shout "Grace, grace" to them. Let God make your mountains into "a plain." It doesn't say admire grace, but release your faith and shout "Grace, grace!" God's unmerited favour has been poured out upon you; now speak to that mountain of discouragement, sickness or financial need - GRACE, GRACE in Jesus name!
Grace and Mercy are like two heads of the same coin. Mercy is God withholding the punishment I deserve while Grace is God giving me blessing or good that I do not deserve. Some of us appear to be more sin-conscious than grace-conscious.
God's unmerited favour is only one aspect of grace. Francis Frangipane says “Grace is God's power, motivated by His mercy, working to fulfill His compassion”. It is God’s promise to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Zerubbabel had mountains in his life that were too much for him. He had a task of that was beyond his abilities. In the struggle of the battle, weariness settled on the governor. So, the Lord gave Zechariah a promise for Zerubbabel. He said,
"‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
God was saying, "You have laboured, your enemies are many and they are strong, but this work I've set before you isn't about your abilities; it's about what I can do working through you." Likewise, our salvation today isn't about our works. It’s about believing in the finished work of Christ on the Cross.
God promised His Spirit would help Zerubbabel, and when it was done, multitudes would be shouting "Grace, grace" at the finished work (Zech.4:7).
Don't run from the mountains in your life; face them in faith---and then shout "Grace, grace" to them. Let God make your mountains into "a plain." It doesn't say admire grace, but release your faith and shout "Grace, grace!" God's unmerited favour has been poured out upon you; now speak to that mountain of discouragement, sickness or financial need - GRACE, GRACE in Jesus name!
The A, B, C's of the Prophetic
By James Goll
You see, we must understand some basic things concerning the nature of the prophetic. Few, in fact very few, prophetic words are ever sovereign declarations that will come to pass without any conditions being met. Most prophetic words are invitations into a process of becoming. Often, the Lord is more interested in our becoming a word and not just getting, releasing or receiving a word.
The prophetic at its best is partial, progressive and conditional. That is not the fault of the prophetic person – it is the way it works biblically, historically and how it works today.
Let me run that by you one more time - the gift of prophecy is partial, progressive and conditional and the conditions are rarely revealed at that time. This is where personal responsibility takes over and each believer must search out the King’s heart for the keys to unlocking the revelation.
There is a big difference between the revelation and the manifestation! As I have said many times before, the gap between the revelation and the manifestation is called the “until clause.”
You see, we must understand some basic things concerning the nature of the prophetic. Few, in fact very few, prophetic words are ever sovereign declarations that will come to pass without any conditions being met. Most prophetic words are invitations into a process of becoming. Often, the Lord is more interested in our becoming a word and not just getting, releasing or receiving a word.
The prophetic at its best is partial, progressive and conditional. That is not the fault of the prophetic person – it is the way it works biblically, historically and how it works today.
Let me run that by you one more time - the gift of prophecy is partial, progressive and conditional and the conditions are rarely revealed at that time. This is where personal responsibility takes over and each believer must search out the King’s heart for the keys to unlocking the revelation.
There is a big difference between the revelation and the manifestation! As I have said many times before, the gap between the revelation and the manifestation is called the “until clause.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
