Laugh #1 – Gen 17:5 (conspicuous for its mocking nature)
God announces to Abram that he is changing his name effective immediately to Abraham – “father of a multitude.” You can bet that this 99 year old man, with only one son (Ishmael) was instantly mocked by everyone whom he told his new name. Everyone including his family and closest friends knew that this was an impossibility and so they laughed at the idea (perhaps behind his back). I have had people mock my calling and dreams also, what about you? Don’t let the negative people persuade you to stop believing in what God wants to do.
Laugh #2 – Gen 17:17 (conspicuous for its faith)
Abraham laughs when God re-affirms his covenant promise that Abraham will have a son with Sarah although they were 99 and 89 respectively. At first, I thought this was a mocking laugh but upon further review I’m convinced this was a laugh of amazement – a visceral, joyful, shocked outburst of some sort. Has God given you a dream or a goal or vision for something great that he intends to do for you or with you that elicits laughter? By the way, my vision for MVCC makes me laugh like this.
Laugh #3 – Gen 18:12 (conspicuous for its unbelief)
Sarah overhears God’s intended plan to give her a baby boy at the age of 89 and she laughs to herself. This is a laugh of unbelief – forgetting that God can do anything. Believing that God will always intervene in our lives to give us the desires of our hearts is a mistake. However, believing that God never does miracles on our behalf is also a mistake. We must never doubt when we hear that someone believes God is going to do a miracle, because He certainly can if He wants. Don’t forget that big miracles take no more effort than little miracles to a God who reveals himself to Abraham in Gen 12 as El Shadai (almighty God). And don’t doubt that God has something incredible in store for our church!
(Lack of) Laugh #4 – Abraham’s first 99 years (conspicuous for its absence)
Abraham, a man of faith, leads his wife and family and his larger Oikos, pursuing God whom he trusts will fulfill that which makes him laugh inside (the dream of an heir and nation through Sarah). However, no one else is laughing. First, Abraham uproots his family from their familiar and comfortable lives to a place that is unknown and which happens to be experiencing a famine (no laughter for sure). Later, he obeys God’s command to circumcise every male in his household (definitely no one is laughing). When you take the lead toward that which makes you laugh, don’t be dissuaded from your vision just because the going gets tough and no one else is laughing.
Laugh #5 – Gen 21:6 (conspicuous for its spontaneous emotion)
This is a laugh of unparalleled enthusiasm. Sarah credits God with bringing laughter to her and says that now everyone will laugh “with her.” It sounds like she’s excited that they’re no longer laughing “at her!” This is the fulfillment of the greatest desire of her heart… God could not have done anything else that would have made her laugh more than to give her a son. At this point everything she had endured as Abraham’s wife became worth it. There is nothing more fulfilling than to want something desperately, then choose to leave it in God’s hands, and finally to see God provide that need (or go above and beyond.)
Laugh #6 – Gen 21:3 (conspicuous for its vindication)
Abraham was instructed to call his son Isaac (meaning “he laughs”), but I suspect he would have called his son Isaac even if God had not given this instruction. Abraham felt vindicated by the birth of Isaac and was now laughing at those who had laughed at him and mocked him for believing God. He’s also laughing because his wife is laughing (when mom is happy – the whole family is happy). Much like the laughter of sports fans whose team finally wins the big one after years of hoping and believing and much like the underdog stories that make us laugh – God will bring vindication to those who persevere in their faith. There have been times that the people closest to me and yes, my own wife have had their doubts about my leadership. In the end it’s always good to be able to laugh!
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There are many different reasons why churches achieve a certain size. Certainly spiritual/moral strength is vital. Beyond this obvious characteristic we can also see the attitude, commitment level, friendliness, work ethic, and faith of the congregation playing a role. Of course the Pastor and the ministry team’s effectiveness as leaders and the clarity of their vision for the church is huge. Timing, location, and resources can also be a factor. However, one other factor is crucial…it is the will and willingness of the church to grow. It means understanding that no matter how much they accomplish, there are still more needs and more unsaved people within their area of ministry influence and asking ourselves, “are we willing to work hard to reach them?”
So an important question I want to ask you is, “do you want us to grow and why?” Let me turn this question a little bit to help you think about it concretely. If we grew to be a church of 500 souls what would that mean to you…would you be excited and why? I know my answer to this question, but it might be different than yours. Imagine MVCC soon becoming a church that hasn’t changed any core values and has in the process grown to have two worship services of over 100 adults; a Chicano ministry of over 50 adults; a youth ministry of over 50 teens; and a children’s ministry of 200! This is exciting to me for many reasons…why are you excited about being a church of 500?
]]>Someone texted me with this question recently and I’ll pass along my answer. I said go to the study blog on the church web site and read my entry on “money.” Regarding the question of net or gross - the OT examples of first fruits and tithes as well as the apparent customary 10% tribute that Abraham paid Melchizedek (pre-Old Covenant) were all gross percentages. On the other hand there is no New Covenant requirement for a specific percentage of giving. In case you think that “lets us off the hook,” don’t forget that the early church seems to have viewed 10% as way too low of a goal.
My challenge to our church is to make it your goal to trust God more – more than you did last year and the year before. If you gave 10% of your net income then trust him with 10% of your gross. If you’ve been tithing for many years and this has become routine, start giving more than 10% and see if God still provides for your needs. If you haven’t been trusting God at all with your money, then make a step in that direction – set a goal by faith and see if God doesn’t provide for your needs with the remaining 98 or 95 or 90 or 80% of your income. Make it your goal that one day you will be able to give away half of your income!
A friend of mine this week shared with me that he and his family have begun tithing for the first time in their lives and they have found that God is indeed providing for all their needs after they have first given generously to Him. The math doesn’t always make sense, but as for me and Tammy, we have always seen God provide. It is a trust issue.
]]>Let me ask a question back – why would they build a brand new McDonalds on Watson when we have a perfectly good McD’s in the Wal-Mart a quarter mile away? Or, why didn’t the struggling Hawaiian BBQ next to Chipotle simply merge with the now out of business, Ben’s Bagels? The answers – each has a unique and distinct purpose and style of business that appeals to certain people. They also have unique goals and a leadership team committed to the success of those goals. In ministry it goes beyond goals to calling, but similar to businesses, we see a need for what we are offering and we see many prospective “customers” in our community. The more restaurants and businesses the more variety and the more services that are offered to our community. The more Bible teaching church options (styles, sizes, personalities) the more opportunity there is to reach a larger segment of the Buckeye population.
The truth is that churches, like many of the individuals and businesses in the far west valley, are working their tail ends off to survive. Like some of the businesses, some of the churches may not survive beyond the next couple of years. Yet, even if they all make it, Buckeye is underserved when it comes to evangelical churches. In the “Bible Belt” you’d expect to see around 50 Christian churches in a town our size, with some of those churches being mega churches. In Buckeye we have less than half that many and they all are small churches and many of them are unable or unwilling to actively reach out with the Gospel. So, we are severely under-churched as it is and Buckeye is still one of the fastest growing towns in the Country!
When a place like Buckeye is underserved it is the local unchurched and non-Christian population that is most affected. Committed Christians will drive all the way into Phoenix if they have to, to find a good church (and many currently do,) but unbelievers who are drawn into church through personal invitations and the convenience of close proximity to a neighborhood or community church will not make this commute. Knowing this need and the reality that Buckeye continues to add population, we know that we need more Bible teaching, Gospel preaching healthy churches not less and the need is urgent.
The temptation for some Buckeye churches might be to hope that a better economy and a big wave of new growth will show up soon and propel us once again into a pattern of numeric and revenue growth and until then we'll hunker down and simply exist. Along with the hunker down mentality comes the idea of churches merging (which would mean fewer churches serving a growing population.) I try to eradicate this notion from the Christian community in Buckeye any time the topic comes up. I’m preaching the fact that we need more churches and more leaders/pastors!
The only way that I would advocate two churches merging would be from a position of strength not weakness or desperation. However, the only time this topic comes up is when people are feeling desperate. This topic was the center of a talk I had with Pastor Miguel some months ago. The Buckeye Spanish congregations like most churches in Buckeye have been feeling the impact of the declining economy and an exodus of attendees. The knee jerk response is to say we should just combine churches. The reality is that all three Spanish congregations in old town Buckeye were being led by called Pastors with congregations loyal to them and the style of their church. Pastor Miguel likes our style of being a casual church, but that’s pretty radical for the Spanish culture and many won’t attend a church where the pastor isn’t dressed in a suit. Likewise Miguel can reach some who the other churches aren’t reaching for various reasons.
So, our challenge isn't to figure out how to merely survive or to consider merging with other church plants. Our challenge is to reinvent ourselves for a different and evolving community. People are leaving Buckeye in droves, but people are buying those foreclosed/short-sell houses. Often, it's a different kind of person from the Yuppies who were coming from Phoenix, from California and from the mid-west, looking for instant equity and the promised entertainment/retail that was supposedly right around the corner. The new people coming to our community have a realistic view of their community and the deficiencies of the education system and the lack of development. These new people are open to God and to church (all the studies show that people are the most open to church when they have just moved to a new place) and we need to reach them!
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If you missed the message and want to learn more about why we should be glad to be nearsighted, you can hear the message on our listen online page.
]]>The best time to engage people who claim to be “Christian” but who deny the co-equality of Jesus and God the Father is when it is a friend of yours who knows you care about them and aren’t just trying to win a debate. When these confused friends of ours aren’t on a mission and aren’t actively out trying to convert people, they may in fact be open to hearing about your faith and hearing about the difference Jesus made in your life. In these cases don’t worry about needing to know all about their religion before you can say anything. It’s important to know what you believe more than needing to know all about their beliefs.
Here’s an important point when talking with someone from a “non-evangelical” Christian church – What they believe and what the Bible teaches is dramatically different. Usually, that’s the first thing I say to Mormon missionaries. They will try to disagree, but they know that if I really know my Bible, they won’t be able to convince me otherwise. So, if you ever walk away from a conversation with a Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness thinking that, “hey, we pretty much believe the same thing,” then, you either are confused about what they actually believe or you don’t really know what the Bible teaches.
If you’re in a conversation with someone of a different belief system trying to convince you they believe basically the same things as you, simply ask them some of the basic theological questions listed below.
You may not be able to get someone from a different belief system to agree with you on these important theological conclusions, but they can’t argue with you that their beliefs on these questions and hundreds of others are different from what we believe. If they will be honest, they won’t claim to believe similarly to what you and I believe. The list of our differences is gigantic, so their missionary claims to the contrary are nothing short of deception for the goal of engaging you, influencing you and converting you. That’s why I don’t encourage you to get into a conversation with those actively proselytizing.
We are instructed in, 2 John 10 not to invite false teachers/missionaries into the home. They are not welcome at our church and they shouldn’t be welcome in our homes. This teaching in 2 John is actually instructing us to be inhospitable – may sound harsh, but it’s God’s Word. In 3 John 5-7 and 1 Peter 4:9, the Christians are encouraged to take in the traveling teachers who had no money and no place of shelter as they moved from place to place teaching about the new faith in Jesus. The New Testament had not been compiled yet and the early church depended on these teachers to help them understand their new faith. These teachers depended on Christian hospitality. However, false teachers were to be rebuffed and not given food and shelter. Well meaning Christians found it difficult (harsh) to turn away someone in need, but the spiritual damage the false teachers were causing wasn’t to be encouraged and supported by hospitality and words of welcome from the Christian community.
When trying to reach out to your friends and family who are a part of these types of Pseudo-Christian churches, remember that it is the missionaries and teachers we are to keep our distance from not the ones who are confused and misdirected. Many of the typical members of these churches don’t know or even buy into everything that is officially taught and may be open to the truth backed up by a lifestyle that is congruent with your beliefs. They may even be surprised when they find out that what you are learning from the Bible and what they are being taught are so drastically different. Love and patience and prayer will be the key because God loves them more than we can realize! Just like the unreligious, God will show them that there is something missing in their life until they receive Jesus by faith.
]]>Our culture has high-jacked this word to mean that “everything is permissible.” That is not at all the meaning. Tolerant people understand that some behaviors are simply wrong. They just choose to put up with the wrong of others in an understanding way. Christians should typically be very tolerant people, because we know that if God is patient with people so should we. Yet, putting up with error, means that we still call our sins what they are – “error” or “rebellion” or “missing the mark,” as the Apostle Paul would put it. If you may see your kids or your friends or your spouse doing wrong things, go ahead and graciously love them anyway, but never say that their inappropriate or irresponsible behavior is OK, because it’s not – Jesus had to die for those errors.
]]>I had learned during my church planting training that a brand new church like MVCC will typically see their original group who started the church, move on to another ministry within 6 – 24 months after the church starts, so I wasn’t shocked when it happened to us. Fortunately for our church, six of the original 11 are still faithfully plugging away and of course God has raised up new leaders from within our family who are doing an outstanding job of serving the body!
If you’ve been around a while, you were able to see that the few from our original core team who’ve moved on to other spiritual families did so based on seeking God’s will. That is an important lesson for you to watch and learn from since no one stays in the same church their whole life. We’re Americans – we’re transient, we’re relatively rich and mobile, many of us enjoy new adventures and some of us are entreprenureal by nature. Other people simply see that their needs have unexpectedly changed and so they re-evaluate everything.
Although no one likes to be the one left behind, those who feel called to live here and serve God by serving the Buckeye area need to remember that saying goodbye to friends should be grieved briefly and then celebrated. God has new ministry challenges in store for them and that’s exciting. That’s why we pray for and cheer for them as they do for us. I pray for my friends who are no longer with us that they will become fully committed servers, givers, worshipers at another Bible teaching/Gospel preaching church. When I find this has happened I relax and praise God. At that point my attention is a little more freed up to focus on the people in Buckeye who still need Christ or who aren’t connected to an Oikos.
Having seen hundreds of people leave from the churches I’ve served over the past 20+ years, I want to share some advice for the time that you will wonder if God may be leading you to move on from your church family.
1. There is nothing better to experience and more important to understand than knowing that you are exactly where God wants you!
Tammy and I have moved away from two other churches in order to eventually end up at MVCC because God was leading in our lives. We continue to feel God’s leading to stay put and serve our church family and the Buckeye community right now and there is no place we’d rather be. This is because we’re absolutely convinced of God’s calling and leading. Going when you should have stayed or staying when you should have gone will both end up hurting you and your family because God’s plan is always best.
2. The grass is never greener on the other side of the fence.
The Devil tries to tell me this all the time but I don’t fall for it. Some people will leave their church because they’re upset and don’t want to work it out, or they are just a discontent person always seeing the “grass is greener” somewhere else. Often, these people try to make the issue about the church, but it’s a “them” issue that won’t get solved until they grow up spiritually (or until they become a believer.) These people never end up really plugging into another church – they keep “hopping” from church to church. A lot of these people eventually stop going to church altogether, while, others kind of hover in limbo, participating in ministries of multiple churches.
3. It takes years to develop true fellowship and deep spiritual friendships.
We too quickly forget that trusting others and being trusted is a hugely important part of our spiritual growth. It takes time before you can really share about your personal struggles and be able to trust friends or a small group with information that makes you vulnerable. However, real ministry only happens in the arena of vulnerability and we can only help people whom we really know and trust. It also takes time before a Pastor or Ministry Director will trust you to fully exercise your spiritual gifts and passions to their capacity in the church because he/she has to trust that you are going to build up the body and not hurt it. In other words, that your theology is in line, that your priorities are in order, and that there are no personal agendas or hidden sinful habits hidden away. If God is growing you and if you have true spiritual support and a place of ministry service, it doesn’t get much better than that!
4. Finish Strong
At our past two churches Tammy and I worked hard to finish strong in each case after we sensed God’s leading to another ministry. Both times we were able to hand off our responsibilities to other capable leaders and at both churches we are still welcomed back with open arms and love when we visit because of how we finished. Here are some practical suggestions for how to do this:
Many of the people who attend MVCC weren’t faithfully attending a Bible teaching church prior to joining with us. However, some of us left another church before we joined here. I trust that if this is you, that you left because God was leading you and if not that you will go back and reconcile with the friends and ministry supervisors at your past church. When you have done this then you will be better able to be committed to MVCC. We expect our members to show their commitment with their presence, their worship, their dollars, their fellowship, and their service. So, if you are part of the group called to be MVCC we expect you to fully engage your heart and your energy and your tithe here and to help us reach out with the Gospel.
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