If you have not seen the buzz about the Monday posting by Len Sweet and Frank Viola, you need to read what they have written. The church must get back to what the church is about in the mind and plan of God. This is the glory of the church, and the power and future of the church.
Here is the website: A Jesus Manifesto. We must join this discussion and talk about how the challenge is met.
The title is purposefully ambiguous. It says two things. First, it is a complete sentence, with subject and verb. It says that ministry is important. That service makes a difference. That what we ministers do has significance and value. We need to hear such a message, because the world is not always certain that “ministry matters”, nor are we who ministers. Second, it could be a subject line which suggests that what will follow are various aspects (matters) of ministry. The intent of this article is more the first than the second.
We talked about grace yesterday. It made a difference. A sister who recently began attending church again after several years away asked that I pray for her son. A man that sometimes seems to wear an outer shell confided after our evening worship (theme: Grateful for Grace) that grace is what helped him get through the challenge of losing a daughter to cancer. At times it seems we ministers are talking and no one is listening. What we are called to do is minister the presence of God to the world we touch. Ministry matters because God matters.
Opportunities to serve are everywhere around us. This week I will spend some time in the office (it’s Monday, but Sunday is coming). I will work on the bulletin. I will also spend a few days in an office in Honduras. It’s not much different than my office at the church building (except it is not air conditioned!). I can pick up the phone and call the same people. I study and write and answer emails. Alongside the normal routines and rhythms of ministry, I will be available to answer a lot of questions, solve a few problems, provide some insight and wisdom (I hope), and make a difference in the training of preachers/ministers.
Ministers quit because hope fades. When I cannot see that what I am doing is making any difference, I am tempted to quit. But not today, not this week. Because ministry matters.
The Barna report released this week (“Americans Open to Exploring New Ways of Experiencing God”) suggests that Americans are more and more inclined to find and practice faith outside the structures and context of traditional churches. The report verifies what many churches have already suspected and experienced. The report can be understood better by surveying some things that are already happening in our society and in our world. [The report is available at www.barna.org.]
The report includes a final section entitled “Changes are Already Happening.” Barna cites several statistics in suggesting that we are seeing a spiritual makeover taking place in America. About 7% of adults attend a house church in a typical month, seven times more than a decade ago. The number of people who rely upon marketplace ministries for spiritual experiences is about half of the number who attend a conventional church service during a given month. Millions of adults rely on faith-based media for religious experience and expression and the number is growing. These things represent a major realignment of religious behavior in the last decade. The rapid growth of the house church or simple church movement is especially significant.
A new book, co-authored by Barna and simple church pioneers Tony and Felicity Dale (The Rabbit and the Elephant), discusses the growth of the simple church movement and describes home-based churches as one place people are seeking faith experiences that are dynamic and genuine. The book describes the experience of the Dales in initiating a house church and explains what they have experienced and learned in the process. Barna’s summary of the major points in the book includes the following.
A new Barna report out this week documents and explains what many churches already know and are experiencing. Finding and practicing religion through traditional churches is less and less popular in our country. Our society and culture is in a time of individual personal exploration, with “new approaches to marriage, communications, sexuality, education, and more”, including how people pursue their faith and how they relate to God and other people of faith.
[The entire report is available at www.barna.org]
Survey Results: What People Are Saying about Their Faith
Let me suggest some of what this may mean for traditional churches. (These are merely observations and possibilities which come to my mind as I contemplate the survey results.)
The Psalmist wrote that the heavens declare the glory of God and that the firmament shows his handiwork (Psalm 19). Natural revelation is affirmed in Scripture many times.
Today I am thinking about “natural revelation” and seeing God in the capacities and opportunities he has given humankind. I got a phone call on Friday–really a message left on the church answering machine. I was out of town–just returned from two weeks in Honduras and then directly to Quest at Oklahoma Christian. I didn’t hear the message until Sunday morning, but I called my friend in Michigan on Sunday afternoon.
He serves as an elder in the church and wanted to be in contact about a missions question. He didn’t know that I had left Christian higher education to return to a mixed role in ministry and missions. Now he wants sermons tapes. He has always been a tremendous encourager and great supporter of my ministry. He said he had a hard time finding me, but finally succeeded on the Internet.
[Even looking for me via an Internet search can be tough–seven sports figures, four politicians, five actors and film/television persons, seven authors, and at least a dozen others share my name. Googling my name means you have to browse through a couple dozen results before you get to me. Add ministry or missions to your search, however, and you shoot my website to the top of the results. But back to my point.]
When I called on Sunday afternoon, we shared a delightful time catching up and renewing our fellowship in Christ. I wrote him early yesterday. By mid-morning yesterday, my secretary forwarded an email to me from him (which she had received over the weekend). My friend and I exchanged several additional emails yesterday and are working together now to increase some possibilities in mission work.
I realize that in telling this story, I have strayed a couple of times from the point reflected in my title. In the email exchange, in the reconnection, in the dream of mission work yet to be done, I see God! God is at work in our world, enabling us, empowering us, connecting us for his glory. His greatest glory is not in the physical universe. His greatest glory is the creative genius demonstrated in making you and me.
Unfortunately our freedom of choice often mars that glory, but human beings living out the plan and purpose of God in their lives are reflections of his glory (read 2 Corinthians 3). We are his letter to the world, we are the demonstration of his wisdom, we are the visible glory of the invisible, just as was Jesus.
Join me today in praying that we might be channels through which the wonder of our world and the glory of our God might be seen!
How incredibly small is our world! We are part of a shrinking global village. This is a special blessing to the people of God, because it allows us to connect with global needs and to make a difference in places and ways not even dreamed about when I was born. Not only can we be present, we can communicate with ease.
Special blessings (such as the ability to travel with ease for the kingdom) sometimes bring special challenges. I received an email Tuesday evening saying one of our members (the wife of one of our elders) had been readmitted to the hospital and very ill. Jan went to the hospital and stayed late into the evening. People want a minister near in times of crisis—something reassuring about God’s presence and power and will. Blessed is the minister who has a wife who also represents God’s presence and power. God blessed me far above others with Jan. She says she selected me, we joke about it, I say I selected her. I think the truth is that God selected us for one another.
I was able to monitor the progress of the sister in the hospital by phone and email throughout the day Wednesday. Wednesday evening/night was especially difficult for her. In our shrinking world, I picked up the phone yesterday morning before I went to the airport and talked to my elder via computer phone on a connection that sounded as though we were next door. I assured him of our prayers. I called againl last night as soon as I was on the ground in Oklahoma City.
Yesterday I helped solve a couple of problems in Honduras, drank coffee with Pacheco, and talked briefly to the Baxter students at chapel. Today I will be part of Quest on the campus of Oklahoma Christian. The challenges of ministry—what a challenging topic (no pun). In a shrinking world, how does one do effective local ministry and find involvement in the global world of ministry at the same time?
I am contemplating today the way God uses people, each one different, with different talents and skills. Not everyone is a minister, not everyone is a missionary. Not everyone can travel and go and help and guide. Those who can go need the help of those who cannot go. Those who can go represent those who send them.
I like to talk about three groups of people. You may be in all three groups. You may be in only one group.
Some are the ones sent. They can go, they are willing to go, they can be effective when they go. Thank God for those in this group.
Some are the senders. These have the ability to send. They may not go themselves (or perhaps they do go), but they are doing what God has given them ability to do. They are sending those who can go to expand God’s kingdom work.
Some are the pre-sent. These are those who are present as God’s representatives in their daily lives. Wherever Christians go as part of the routines of their lives, they are the pre-sent, present in this world as ambassadors of God. They are God’s present to and presence in the world.
I don’t know who said it first, but it is worth repeating. “Every heart where God doesn’t dwell is a mission field; every heart where God does dwell is a missionary.” God give us missionary hearts, and the willingness to do what he calls us to do—sent, senders, or pre-sent!
The mornings here are wonderful–quiet and cool, I enjoy rising early and contemplating the beauty. Yesterday morning I attended the 5:00 a.m. prayer session at La Vega church. I have attended devotional at the clinic almost every morning at 7:00 a.m. We have a prayer circle for the Baxter employees at 8:00 a.m. and student chapel at 9:30. Yesterday I spoke to the students during chapel about the connection between ministers with changed lives and effective ministry. They were kind in their responses and words of gratitude and appreciation.
There are three U.S. groups on campus right now. A group from Park Plaza in Tulsa is working with an area church and will host a VBS on Saturday. Another group from the OKC area is working on a church building roof in Esopa. A TORCH group arrived yesterday and will help with several projects in the area, including painting one of the towers in the married students apartment complex. The work done by the groups provides benevolent and financial support for the ministries of the churches, and of the Baxter students as they go out on weekends to preach in these relatively new church plants.
While I am here, I am working on the strategic planning project. On Monday, I met with Dr. Xiomara who is director of the clinic and we discussed the strategic plan. That afternoon I met for about five hours with the faculty and they shared many good ideas. On Tuesday, I met with the director of the correspondence course program (CELO stands for courses by extension for leaders and workers). Their word “workers” begins with an “o”. Tuesday afternoon included a meeting with the administrators.
It hardly seems possible that I leave today. I am going directly to Oklahoma City for the Quest program at Oklahoma Christian, and will speak on that program tomorrow. Que Dios les bendiga! (May God bless you!)
[Wow! Has this week gone by quickly. I leave for the U.S. tomorrow and will speak at Oklahoma Christian on Friday. This afternoon I have found a little bit of unscheduled day and an opportunity write briefly. I am beginning a series of blogs to share some reflections from this trip.]
This trip to Honduras has been different from any before in at least one sense—I have never been here during an earthquake! In fact, I had never experienced the earth tremors and shaking of an earthquake before. I really appreciate the generosity of the church (Main and Oklahoma congregation in McAlester, Oklahoma) in allowing me to be gone to help with the important mission work being done at Baxter and the clinic.
I attended church Sunday morning at the Kennedy congregation. The congregation has almost 300 members, and uses small groups in their outreach efforts. They purchased an old warehouse 5 or 6 years ago, and they have done marvelous things with it. They use the ground floor as an auditorium (although the supporting pillars present some line of sight problems) and the upstairs is classrooms for the children and teens. Previously they met in a public school building and the area where they met was very cramped. Back then there were only about 70-80 in attendance. I remember being in Tegucigalpa in 2003 and helping knock down some of the interior walls in the warehouse with sledgehammers. Then the fire trucks came and used high pressure hoses to completely wash out the interior. It was quite a sight to see so much water rushing out of a double door under extremely high pressure. It is good to see how the church has matured. They are working on planting two additional congregations. There was one baptism Sunday morning—the father of one of the members. The preaching staff includes two Baxter graduates, one who works with the church full-time and another who teaches at Baxter and also helps with the ministry at Kennedy. In addition, Baxter students are assigned to various congregations as part of their ministry training, and there are two Baxter students serving there as ministry interns. The church is in the process of identifying elders and deacons.
Sunday evening I attended church at La Vega, and heard a good sermon from their family minister (they call him minister of matrimonies). This church also has a Sunday morning attendance of about 300 and has elders and deacons. They have very effective outreach programs. The pulpit preacher is a Baxter graduate. They are having a prayer service at 5 a.m. every day this week to pray for evangelism and their community. They are having about 100 present each morning. I will use this example the next time I hear anyone call Latin Americans lazy!
(to be continued)
The morning cool didn’t last long today–it was already getting quite warm by the time I met Lupe at 8:15 to ride to church. I had not had the opportunity to worship at Kennedy for several years, and it was a delight to renew friendships and to see the growth of the church. A casual lunch extended well into siesta time, so that it was almost 3:00 by the time I got back to campus.
A little computer time to answer emails and write, and it was time to leave for church again. At 4:30, four of us walked together to La Vega, and shared another wonderful time of worship and praise, study and renewal. I love the Latin American practice of sharing the congregational supper on Sunday evening as well as on Sunday morning. If anything, it is usually more special to me in the evening.
The day is almost over, and God has been good to me today! Perhaps that is what Sundays are all about.
Saturday dawned bright and fresh, the cool breeze and night’s rest speak refreshment and readiness.
I spent Friday evening enjoying friendships, good food, and lingering conversations. As we left the restaurant we met a grouip of 38 people waiting to dine–mostly young people, God’s children who were in Honduras to serve and to help meet the needs of the people. God sends encouragement.
We have two groups on campus this morning–both are going out to work today in area churches. Our students at Baxter will go forth to their weekend assignments. God’s people are preparing for service and for His Day tomorrow. I love Saturdays in Honduras–they also belong to the Lord! This day is not mine, although God gave it to me. He knows that I will do some things to sustain my presence on this planet, but above all, I will show his presence in the world and bring glory to him in all whom I touch and meet.
Remembering this siimple truth seems easier here in Honduras than it is in the U.S. I wish it were not so. My Saturdays are too easily selfishly spent. May God give us wisdom and insight!
