November 9, 2011

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW AT WEST PLAINS FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH?

“Ships and Shifts: Hearers and Doers”

Our new man DAN was just saying recently that a church can either resemble an ocean liner or a ship of war. An ocean liner is going nowhere, and the deck is covered with sunning chairs and drink bars. However, a ship of war is always patrolling or going toward an encounter, and all persons aboard drill constantly for war. May God help us resemble that ship of war!

I talked the other day of the need for a church first to see itself as a family, then as a hospital, then as a school, then as a business, and also as a social revolution. Each of these metaphors is a paradigm. Shifting our self-image from one to the other is always difficult. Bro. Jim and I have worked hard at helping the shift move from school to business. FBC is truly busy as a beehive! J Bro. Dan and I will be working on moving from to business to social revolution. J J J

You are truly the Lord’s army. Our weapons are grace and truth. Our manner is persistent prayer and witness. Our motive is love. The Lord’s army marches as Christ did, mingling and looking into the eyes of others, seeking to “buttonhole” as many as will hear us tell our own version of how Jesus saves; to save those who are lost.

Hearing the Holy Scriptures is how two most important things happen: first—receiving the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2); second—having miracles done to us, through us, and for us (Galatians 3:5). As a preacher, I serve a very important purpose in your life.

Yet, if all you do is hear the word of God and do not do the word of God, you will mistakenly call yourself a child of God (James 1:22-25). For example: you will call yourself a Christian, but your life will not be “blessed.” Can you relate to this? The glory of the Lord in your life will not be evident to those around you.

That is where our man DAN CARGILL enters the picture of our lives. He is just as much consumed with how we are doing the word of God as I am with how we are hearing the word of God. We need to listen to him. We need to get behind him.

I love to listen to him discussing the organizational elements of our ministry. He will help us activate as the body of Christ. He will also help each one to keep his eyes on the mission given to us by the Lord. Take a look at four main things he has been discussing:

1) Each one reach one - asking each Sunday School class to see who is in their sphere of influence and intentionally invite them to Sunday school and church, and to share their faith.

2) Intentional outreach - we will build a program that will touch every door in the West Plains area with information about our church and to invite them to come.

3) Reorganization of the Sunday school so that the facilities do not cause a hindrance to guests from attending or feeling welcome.

4) Intentional, follow-up outreach for the programs already established. We will initiate Sunday school and the mens/women's ministries to do visitation to those families that use our benevolence ministries (e.g. Food Pantry, Little Angels Day Care, etc.).

NEXT WEEK: Look for a report on my recent experience at the Missouri Baptist Convention.

Praising the Lord that Life is Hard

Several of us were discussing how our lives would be changed if the Joplin tornado had come to West Plains in the same degree of destruction. One in our group once lost his house and cars due to a tornado at a time that his four children were young. His experience added to our understanding of what happens to a city and to individuals.

As a believer I feel a need to find how to think about the hardness of life as something for which I can thank the Lord. Last night in family devotionals, we read Deuteronomy 8:11-18. In verses 15-16 God speaks of the troubles that He allowed His people to suffer and He ends with this phrase: “…to do you good in the end.” I was struck with the impression that we lose sight of the intended end when we are losing those whom we love.

The troubles being mentioned in Deuteronomy cost the lives of thousands! In such cases of tragedy, we become blind with grief. And all God says about why they suffered is: “…to do you good in the end.” So, this brings me to where I started in the previous paragraph. As a believer I feel a need to find how to think about the hardness of life as something for which I can thank the Lord.

As my group prayed, I heard spiritual insights flow from their mouths. A list began to form. I realized that the entire human way of life is a story written in blood. As mountains determine the flow of a river, the hardness of life determines our way of life. I am now sharing that list so that sight might be restored to those who may be feeling numb and blind with grief and shock.

GOOD THINGS WHICH COME AS A RESULT OF DISASTER—Gratitude increases for what was not lost. Many acts of goodness emerge. Unity is formed, and the customary fragmentation of the community disappears. Good aspirations are fostered. Cries of faith honoring God pour out of our mouths. Compassion increases, and hearts soften. Hedonism loses its luster. Materialism loses its luster. Persons learn how to give and receive grace. Independents who are proud and isolated become humble, relational dependents. I hope that in reading this, your “pump is primed” and you will think of more good things that come about through disaster. God bless you!

Vendettas and Crusades

A vendetta is driven by rage, hate, and resentment. Bitterness may drive a person to destroy something; or someone. A crusade is different. It is driven by pity. However, it appears to make the same noise and heat.

These are common enough among church people. We see crusaders to save the children, to save the youth, to save the unborn, to save the poor, to save the lost, to save the prisoner, to save the environment, to save the economy, to save jobs, to save the nation, to save the government, to save the unwed mothers, to save the neighborhoods, to save our traditions, to save marriage, etc. Are you on any crusades? Am I?

I have a friend who has a crusade. He gets up on a soapbox at every public gathering. Without warning, he launches into a monologue. He throws out obscure stats and quotes. He holds the floor while he rampages in such a way that his audience has no idea how long they will be held captive. His manner is rude and unwelcome. He is the worst enemy of his own crusade. He is truth (maybe) without grace, and his lack of grace casts his message into doubt.

His manner provokes me to introspection. Do I have any crusades? I do know that recently our church experienced a very slight “earthquake” of discord when I made the impression that I was a crusader for a particularly unwelcome campaign. I had to prove that I was not crusading. Still, the damage was done.

Do I have any crusades? I get a pleasure from posing that question to myself. I think it may be worthy to have a crusade, especially if it is beautiful and constructive. If it rallies resources and persons, it may feel very worthy. A crusade can make you feel good about yourself.

I have another friend who has a crusade to save souls of children living in the violent, gang-controlled neighborhoods of his city. You can learn more about it at www.onehopeministry.org. He is the one who discipled my wife when she was in high school.

This brings me now to the identity of my crusade. I would have to say that my crusade is to save the babes in Christ. I refer not to pretty women when I say “babes.” Ha! I refer to new believers.

Ever since I was 18 years old, I have believed that new believers (or “novices,” 1 Timothy 3:6; “little children,” 1 John 2:12-14) require personal attention so that they may become strong in the Word and able to overcome the Devil. What sheer pleasure and sublime experiences have been mine when helping a little one to get his legs in Christ! The crusade has expanded in recent years to include multiplication of mentors helping novices.

It has been a crusade that has paid off. It has been blessed. It has been satisfying. It is one that I imagine continuing until I die. Do you have a crusade that satisfies you?

The Great Commission Resurgence (GCR): “Things You Should Know”

This past week, Michelle and I were away at the Southern Baptist Convention. As many of you know, the GCR presentation was made on Tuesday at 2:45 p.m., and the messengers had an opportunity to discuss and determine the destination of the seven recommendations of the GCR Task Force. The report was passed by an overwhelming majority. As a messenger of the First Baptist Church (West Plains) and as your pastor, I would like to help you understand a little more about GCR:

1. First Baptist Church (West Plains) is affiliated with over 40,000 churches in the USA as well as the millions around the world who have been baptized by our missionaries in past years. Our family has a name: the Southern Baptist Convention.

2. This affiliation involves several kinds of ties that bind us together in cooperation. We have an opportunity to move as one to penetrate the lostness of our world.

3. This month (June 2010) at our national meeting our churches voted to adopt a plan called “Great Commission Resurgence” (GCR).

4. This is a plan intended to make LESS money stay in “the Bible Belt” and to make MORE money reach unreached peoples and underserved regions of America.

5. There are nearly 500 international missionaries being recalled to America this year due to lack of money. This is a “retreat” at a time when we should be “charging” the gates of Hell.

6. This is also a campaign to confront INDIFFERENCE and MATERIALISM among Southern Baptists. Three stats in decline that correlate to obedience to Jesus’ Great Commission are: baptisms, money given to churches, and money that reaches global missions.

7. Let’s compare 1950 and 2008. There were 17,000 less churches in 1950 but they baptized 33,000 MORE people in 1950 than we did in 2008.

8. The GCR is a plan to confront a growing indifference to the sad problem of spiritual lostness. Each person in the world is lost until he/she personally receives Christ for salvation. Each person will either spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell.

9. The GCR is a plan to challenge each Baptist to consider: how much do you care about the lostness of billions living in places which have no churches, Bibles, nor gospel witnesses?

10. The GCR is a plan to confront the materialism of Baptists. According to surveys the average Baptist gives 2.5% of his income to his church.

11. The Great Commission is found in the Bible at Matthew 28:19 and Acts 1:8.

12. You will be hearing and seeing much more about the GCR in the months to come.

Father's Delight

When I was a little boy, my daddy used to say when it was time to apply the board of knowledge to the seat of education, “This is gonna hurt me worse than it will hurt you.” For eighteen years now I have been correcting my first child, Abigail. My coaching drills have come at her on a daily basis. Suddenly, this week, her graduation from high school is upon us, and I am not happy to see her childhood passed.

I care very little for all the predictions of further responsibilities to be borne. Let me explain. I was the eldest of four children who were often left under my care. My whole childhood was spent being solely responsible for fifteen dogs. I entered vocational ministry when I was 20 years old. My first child was born when I was 24 years old. Never in my life have I known the feeling of being responsible for none but myself. Being told that my obligations to Abigail are not over makes little difference with me. Supporting others will be my lifelong purpose.

Here’s what makes me sad: this IS the end of Abigail’s childhood. What does that mean to me? It simply means: this is the end of having her under my roof and in my arms every day.

We named her Abigail, an old Hebrew word that means “father’s delight.” There’s a story behind that. After an engagement in which Michelle and I were separated by hundreds of miles for a year, we married, and within six weeks I was unemployed. Within ten weeks she was pregnant. Later that year, in the month that my wife was due to give birth, turmoil split the church where I served on staff as the children’s minister.

In addition to all of these struggles, I was a full-time seminary student and money was scarce. Good times were nearly non-existent. But there was a bright spot. We had a baby, and as a word of faith in contradiction to everyone saying that children are a burden, we named her “father’s delight.”

My memories of those first four years of married life are mostly sad. Not that our marriage was bad-- far from it. But our circumstances seemed unusually hard for a young couple to bear. Usually when a person looks back, they view the past with rose-colored glasses, meaning that the past tends to appear more golden than it was. But this is not the case for us. When we look back on those first four years-- it sometimes felt as if God hated us.

Yet, in those years we believed that all the things that were happening to us were designed by God to make us strong, to make our marriage strong, and to add rich textures to our ministries. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).

And you know what? Do you know what stands out in my heart and mind as the BEST thing going on in that four-year period? The answer is: Abigail. She was our daily delight. She made us giggle. She gave us hugs (so much better than having a puppy!) Nearly every Sunday after church, as Michelle made lunch, I would dance along to my Andrae Crouch records with Abigail in my arms as my dance partner.

When people are eighteen years old, we are so over-inflated with the desire to prove ourselves. We are full of the desire to be free. We are full of the desire to distinguish ourselves from our parents. And we are full of determination not to repeat whatever we perceive to be the mistakes of our parents. Typically this period of young adulthood is dominated by these false, exaggerated, unhealthy paradigms. Sadly, it can be such a prime time for shipwreck. Abbey, in your case though, daddy is NOT worried!

Lately deep subterranean caverns of feeling and memory have been tapped. Primeval paternal ambitions and dreams and fears have been recalled. And so, despite eighteen years of correcting her, I still have the feelings of that new daddy who first adored her (captured in the photo which hangs above my bedside table).

It is the fear that she cannot possibly know how much I cherish her and cannot possibly know how hard my heart aches for her happiness because all she has known is the life-coach who has corrected her all these years. Indeed, Dad was right when he said that disciplining a child hurts the parents more than the child. The fear that she might not know how much she is cherished is what hurts the most. O dear darling—you really have been and you really are your father’s delight!

Congratulations on graduating with honors, baby. And thanks for the memories!

~Dad

Haiti: Is God Merciful?

I. The Constant Danger of Death

Tragedies against good persons, against babies, and against a large group of all kinds always triggers the question to be asked: “Where was God?” Is God good?” Is God in control?” In such cases it seems right to accuse God of wrongdoing (Job 2:9-10).

A Christian disciple's first desire is to ask this of Jesus. Go to Luke 13:1-5. Jesus makes us see that no matter who you are, you are in constant danger of sudden death. His answer is practical. Instead of entertaining the problem of how to explain tragedies, He simply and practically issues a warning. Be ready to meet God.

II. The Arrival of Death

The door of opportunity for virus, cancer, genetic mutation, earthquakes, famine, and pestilence was opened on that day in the Garden of Eden when God found Adam’s guilt. By one man's sin, death entered (Romans 5:12). The sin only involved biting a piece of fruit. It was forbidden fruit. Genesis 3 tells the story of how God dealt out judgments of curses; not just one curse, but several. Man’s dominion was lost and demons took over. Demons have been killing us ever since. Disease keeps multiplying. Even the earth is cursed and miserable. See Romans 8:19-23.

III. Is God Merciful?

Before the Bible presents the mercy of God, it presents the judgment of God. It’s a fact! God is judgmental. I hate to say it, but it is true. He has cursed this world with many natural laws that are dangerous. But beginning with His treatment of the first murderer (Cain), God has been showing another side to His personality. God is also merciful!

The Old Testament is a long history of suffering. Inserted throughout that story are many glimpses of God’s mercy. See Isaiah chapters 1-3, and notice the glimpse of His mercy at 1:18-20! Also, go on and read Isaiah 53. The gospel of Christ and Him crucified, resurrected, and ascended is the brightest evidence of God’s mercy! It shines against the backdrop of human tragedy. Jesus made forgiveness for sinners. So, when He was asked to explain the meaning of tragedies, He answered that it means that we better repent today and be ready. There’s the mercy of God!

All Humanity is lost and separated from God by sin, but as many as hear and receive the gospel will be saved. The Lord becomes their shepherd and He often protects His people (see Psalm 23). He also often disciplines His people (see Hebrews 12:5-11). He also permits suffering to accomplish something good from it. See 2 Corinthians 1:3-11 and Romans 8:28.

A great word picture of the relation of Christian believers to the dangers of this life is the picture of Daniel in the lion's den. We are surrounded by dangers. As long as God chooses, He protects us as He protected Daniel with the angel in the den. See Lamentations 3:22-23. In conclusion, let us not be surprised by tragedy. Rather, let us be surprised by glimpses of God's mercy for they are exceptional for this world, not the normal thing.

(Scripture resources: Job 2:9-10; Luke 13:1-5; John 9:1-3; Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:22; Romans 8:19-23; Matthew 5:44-45; Genesis 4:9-15; Isaiah 1:18-20; Isaiah 53; Psalm 23; Hebrews 12:5-11; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Romans 8:28; Daniel 6:16-23; Lamentations 3:22-23)

Passion and Parenting

Christian parents are faced with a challenge of living in a new America that is only an uglier form of what she always was: a secular nation. The ACLU and other groups have found ways to take advantage of our nation’s foundational and constitutional separation of church and state to widen the gap between church and state to the point that the church is neither the center nor the conscience of the community. The church is nearly as marginalized from the American way of life as residents in a nursing home. I think there is a trend among Christian parents to respond to the challenge of Secularism by means of a short-cut that fails.

What mistake have religious people made from the foundation of the world? Their mistake has been to rely upon straightjackets to themselves and others, particularly their children. Keeping this short and sweet, let me jump to the bottom line. Here it is: Christian parents need to seek passion even more than rules as they lead their children through this world to adulthood.

Rules have their place and are a nice expression of one’s passion for God. I’m not against rules. Ask my children. I am in favor of as much of “touch not, taste not” as is necessary to avoid developing a taste for unhealthy worldliness. Abstinence and separation are absolutely matters of Christian duty, and I am not against rules.

I am against the thinking that says “we’re done. We’ve got all the right rules in place!” Rule-based religion is a house made of sticks, and that bad old wolf can huff and puff and blow that house down. Rules with passion is like putting salt and pepper on the table.

Rules without passion is like an athletic contest where your team only has a plan for defense and no plan for offense. Christian parents are losing their kids to demons and to the world so often because they do not give their kids a heart for God. So many are only giving their kids isolation, and so many more parents overreact to this kind of parent and give their children too much indulgence of freedom to enjoy worldliness.

What is passion? “Passion” is my shorthand way of referring to the good work of doing the spiritual disciplines in a life on fire for God and being spent to exhaustion in prayer, witness, stewardship, and ministry. Passion is my way of referring to the way we go above and beyond the call of duty by way of extra time spent playing worship music at home, singing, dancing and praising the Lord. I’m referring to extra time spent attending church and doing the Lord’s work. (How thankful I am for parents who loved the preaching of the Word so much that they had us kids in church even for the Sunday night service! I'm glad so glad that our "family time" was spent "under the Word time!") Passion is contagious!

The life I’m describing has been described in various ways as: building your free time around the church, the disciples’ life, the crucified life, and the abundant life. The issue is not getting your body on location at church all the time. The issue is making the Lord the focus of your daily life and mentoring your child in that way of life.

Make the Lord the reason for everything. Make the Lord the focus at family meals. Make the Lord the focus when you and family are about to hit the road traveling. Make the Lord the focus in every discussion with your child about matters of right and wrong. Let your children confront you when your walk does not match your talk so that their pressure of expecting integrity forces you to walk the tightrope of a life of integrity.

Passion means sacrifices and suffering. How much misery are you bearing because of choices you have made for the Lord? Your children need to see you willingly and voluntarily suffering for the Lord if they are going to suffer for the Lord also.

How long does it take for you to show heartbreak over sin? Do you merely expect godly actions or do you also expect godly attitudes? Do you show heartbreak over ungodly actions only or do your children see heartbreak over ungodly attitudes?

Let’s go one step deeper and wider. You show heartbreak over both ungodly actions and ungodly attitudes, but what about ungodly appetites? Have you noticed what your child loves? Do you pay attention to their dreams and goals? Do you pay attention to their friends, their music, and their other forms of amusement?

Showing heartbreak over ungodliness at the very heart of all things is the place where you must fight the battle. See 2 Corinthians 10:3-6. They will see your passion for God when you show heartbreak and the heart is what the demons want to control. So, parent, you’ve got to focus on the heart.

What are your child’s heart’s appetites? Your goal is to see evidence of a heart that hates sin (repentance) and loves God (submission, honesty, transparency, sweetness toward authority, loyalty toward authority, good work ethic, discipleship, holiness, worship, separation, suffering persecution).

In closing, passion is working exhaustively, praising unashamedly and unreservedly, and suffering painfully for the Lord. “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). He says: “having a form.” Let us not be formalists. Let us choose to be powerful.