I am not so sure that our current focus on creativity and cleverness should be considered as viable "tools for today." Now after much throught and overtime I see that we have sold out to technology and replaced hard labor with quick slick events and mind buzzing entertaining presentations. I must admit to myself that a lot has changed in me since I started out on this mission called ministry. I just turned 39 and I can say with assurance that I have been through the firery furnace of the refiners fire. 14 years ago Jesus entered into my life in glory and sovereignty. I bowed my knee to Him and offered to Him my life. I turned from the world in which I was living in and for, and stepped fully committed into the kingdom of the Son of God. In the beginning I sought to do as much as I could for Him. I offered every gift I had to my pastor in service to my King. I was not raised in the protestant/evangelical/pentecostal culture. So for me I had no baggage. I was a clean slate ready to set my heart a blaze for the one who redeemed me. And in those first 5 years I was used of God to bring a fresh fire to the pentecostal lifers who had been through the carpet changes of church. It never dawned on me that what I had in Christ and what Christ Jesus had set in me was not fully enjoyed and celebrated by everyone who names the name of Jesus. I am glad for those formative years. We were crazy about Jesus. We didn't run out and hand out bottles of water with our church name on it. We didn't go out and clean public bathrooms for nothing. We were different. We prayed with our co-workers and asked them if they wanted to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We opened our mouths and proclaimed Jesus to muslims in carryouts. We prayed hard and fasted often. We bent our knee and pounded our fist on the altar in intercession. We were at war with the enemy and offered peace to those around us. It was not clever or genius. It was labor. In other words it was work. HARD work! But something has changed in the last 10 years. It may have been changing well before that but I have seen the paradigm shifting drastically and evermore rapidly recently. It is like we have lost our grip, or better yet our influence, in the culture. And we, the church ministry, are frantically trying to reach out and regain a grip by any means possible.
As I had mentioned earlier I have been changed by the way I see church ministry. Let me briefly elaborate. After my first ten years of serving in ministry, my wife and I took a call to take over a church that had been abandon and pastor-less for 4 years. We were given advise at the time by those in leadership to do whatever it took. We were in our early thirties and childless at the time. We moved to a city we both were not originally from and we both had to seek employment. We worked both our full time 40 hour a week jobs to make ends meet and we also offered the other 40 hours of the week to revitalizing this church. Now most stories you read about in best selling books start off with these types of stories and end up telling you that through pain, sweat, blood, and tears God came through the church exploded in growth and our prosperity was a roller-coaster of blessings. Well done though good and faithful servant, right? Not this story. This was different. This is the story of the other 9 out of 10 churches that don't get written about. Both Jen and I had many talents and gifts. We both had experience working in large churches. We both have musical backgrounds and evangelism backgrounds. We had planned, started, and engineered outreaches of all kinds. We were fresh with ideas and dreams. For the next three years we threw everything we had at making our presence known in our community. We had other churches helping us with our events. We had hand made billboards, handed out flyer's by the thousands, wore handmade event t-shirts and publicized our church and its events by every clever means imaginable. Not only did we fill our front lawn with multiple 3 story high inflatables we made major changes to our small brick building to offer an appealing curb side appeal to the tens of thousands of cars that passed by our church every day. Because you all know that it's all about location, location, location. These are just a few of the ideas we had. I could mention many, many more that we produced all for the sake of turning this church around and to see God bless us with a growing fruitful ministry. Those were fun times and we had a lot fun. But as for results? Well that is where the story takes a turn. Our results were awful! What can I say? Maybe we should have had a profession ministry coach come in and lead us to the superbowl of church ministry.
Was I changed because I tried and I failed? Or maybe I was changed by my feelings towards the ministry? Maybe it was my approach. Or possibility I didn't do my research to understand the demographics and my community. Maybe there is merit in all of these questions. However, in my heart of hearts I know that the answer is no to all of these. Actually what has changed are the methods and means by which Jesus desires to use to draw people into His Kingdom and out of the kingdom of darkness. Clever ideas and creative presentations are quick flashes intended to implant an experience but it fails to acheive the deep inward penetrating work that Jesus desires to work in the soul or heart of a person. These self promoting ideas are like fireworks we see on the fourth of July which are exhilarating for a moment to our senses but within minutes they are fading sparks fizzling into a faded memory. We are building peoples memories with events and not the one and only event that they will never forgot. The day they came face to face with Jesus! We even draw people to our music shows called worship services with the hook that they will have a God experience. How can you sell that to someone? I knew to young priests, called Eli's sons, who did that and God made sure they died in battle that very day.
Now after these years I have now seen pure and perfect fruit in the true labor of ministry and I am so thankful that Jesus has allowed me to fail. For I see more clearly than the day I started out on this mission. And that is Jesus has many He has called but few He chosen. I have been laboring in the fields along side the Holy Spirit and the harvest is ripe. However, I have noticed that the harvesters are either in their nicely built barns coming up with new and creative ways to get the people to visit their barns, or they have come out into the fields without a sickle and instead have notepad and pen handy to jot down what types of barns do the wheat like to sit in.
To end this post I would like to say that clever ideas and creative ministry is an american church paradigm. It was not so in the beginning. Paul never thought about using his tent making skills to create a beautiful cool hand made tent backdrop that he could use when he went into the marketplace to preach. It may sound like I am strongly against clever ideas and creative ways to reach our generation. And your right! If we want a quick draw, flash and lights, shock and awe type of ministry then we are in the wrong business. Lets leave that to the american idols. The real light show and shock and awe is seated on the throne. And when Jesus reveals himself to someone believe me it won't be because of your clever idea. It will because there heart was ripe, the Holy Spirit was present, and you were laboring and battling the devil to help bring that soul into the Kingdom of God.
Acts 26:16-21
16 'But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.
17 'I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you,
18 'to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.'
19 "Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,
20 "but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.
21 "For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.
(NKJ)
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