The Journey

Thankfulness

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I am truly thankful.  God has blessed me and my family beyond our imaginations.  Not only has 2007 seen the expansion of my family to include Matthew, who was born in April, but even in the last several weeks, we have experienced God's goodness and grace.  I will look back at this year as a time when God led me into a deep experience of faith and trust.  So I am thankful...

...I am thankful that God saved me by His grace through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

...I am thankful that God called me into full-time ministry - being able to forsake all for the sake of the call.

...I am thankful for a wonderful wife who loves God with all her heart and who is a dedicated and gifted mother.

...I am thankful for my four beautiful children, who are imaginative, creative, and bold.

...I am thankful for the men and women of faith that surround me with their prayers and words of encouragement.

...I am thankful for God's church - the church that is committed to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ and salvation.

So tomorrow is more that "Turkey Day" for me - it is a day in which I can reflect on God greatness and how He entered my life and changed me - giving me hope, blessings, and a purpose.  What do you think?

Daddy's Girl

Today is my daughter's seventh birthday.  Years before - before her birth, before Angela and I even  dated - Angela was praying one day in church.  She was discouraged, worried that she would never find a husband.  Single and in ministry, Angela felt something missing.  So, she was praying, desiring God's peace.  An elderly lady walked up to Angela, prayed for her, and then said something interesting.  "Angela," she said, "you will have a child."  Of course, Angela was polite and smiled, but she knew in her heart there would be no child without marriage - and there was no prospect of that happening anytime soon.

So Angela pondered the matter in her heart.  Then, in a dream, I think, God gave her a name for a child: "Amariah."  She never heard of that name before.  So the next day, she purchased a baby name book, and looked the name up.  To her amazement, the name "Amariah" is Hebrew for "God has promised."  Soon after, Angela and I began to date - and then we were engaged - and then we we married.  Then in 2000, a little girl (actually a big girl of 9lbs 4ozs) was born to Angela and me.  We named her Amariah Hope Ann: "God has promised hope and grace."

Every time I look at my daughter, I see her as a living testimony of God's goodness and grace.  God has blessed her with an amazing memory (if I had it I would have a PhD) and a deep love for Jesus.  I am so proud of her!

What Really Matters

As a pastor, I am frequently looking at different approaches to church growth and community outreach.  One of those approaches that has received much attention over the last twenty years is the "Seeker Sensitive" philosophy popularized by Bill Hybels and the Willowcreek Community Church in Illinois.  I know of many Assemblies of God pastors and churches that embraced this method of evangelism.  I must confess that I never could understand how we could or why we should conceal the Pentecostal Message by giving the appearance of being a secular "nightclub."

Last week I received an email from Focus on the Family's H.B. London.  I think what he has to say is important.

Well, it seems everyone is talking about Pastor Bill Hybels' statements concerning the ministry of Willow Creek over the past 30 years. At least, I have seen his words in print on a lot of Web sites and from the pages of a new book, REVEAL.

The report from the book "reveals" that what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers, yes, but not disciples. Hybels goes on to say [HB London retracted this quotation wrongly attributed to Bill Hybels.  However, it is part of the book that he quotes], "If you simply want a crowd, the 'seeker sensitive' model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it's a bust."

I also understand Willow is asking 500 churches in their association to survey their congregations even as Pastor Hybels and his staff did. I received a copy of one of the surveys yesterday from a church in Colorado Springs. The survey will take between 20-25 minutes to complete, will be anonymous, links to the REVEAL Spiritual Life survey, and asks questions about one's spiritual progress. It would appear that Hybels and others are just growing weary of programs, promotion and platform presence. Of the 11,000 people who responded to the REVEAL survey, 26 percent of them said they were either "stalled" or "dissatisfied" with their spiritual growth.

I would think most of us would be happy to see 75 percent of our congregation enjoying spiritual growth — but I believe what it is saying is that the mature believers are not seeing progress in their own journeys. That is serious. As I read various reports, I could not help but think of the thousands of pastors who did not buy into the "seeker sensitive" strategy who lost members and even their own ministry because they were out of touch. Teaching the fundamentals of faith was not enough. Or — the thousands who bought hundreds of dollars worth of "Willow" material, now to see it in question. Or — the pastors who restructured their total operation to fit the Willow model only to see it collapse around them. But there are thousands of others of our colleagues who, with God's help, made it work. What was the finished product? I guess we will see.

Pastor Hybels' conclusion is, "We should have gotten people, taught people how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own." What a concept. I think I can see a new paradigm on the horizon.

A Journey in Faith

It is Saturday evening.  My wife and I have put the children to bed, and now I have time to reflect.  This has been a momentous and sobering week for me.  I will always look back and consider this week as one of the most important mile-stones of my life.  It was a week on which I learned a valuable lesson on trusting in God with my "whole" heart. 

I am reminded of another mile-stone in my life.  It was in 1983, when I was preparing to start my enlistment in the US Air Force.  My grandparents invited me to visit them at their house.  After reminiscing for a while my grandpa invited me over to the couch.  He told me that there were several Scripture passages in God's Word that I must learn and learn to live.  He opened the "big" family Bible and as he pointed to the verse, he looked at me intently and quoted it from memory: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understands, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6). 

Although it has been several years since I preached my grandpa's funeral, his words reverberate in my mind to this day--especially this week.  I had to face an important decision in my life a couple days ago.  Actually this has been a faith journey that began over a year ago (Wednesday, September 27, 2006 to be exact).  God spoke to me that day - He gave me a clear word.  This week He confirmed that word.  Now it was up to me to receive that word by faith - to trust God completely.  In the end, God's grace enveloped me, and I trusted Him.  This was a humbling experience.