If you are in the Boone area (or don't mind driving), please consider attending this upcoming seminar our church is hosting:
They Won't Listen!
Moses told the Israelites what God told him to say, that God would deliver them. But the Israelites did not listen. So when God told him to go talk to Pharaoh, Moses said, “The children of Israel have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me, for I am of uncircumcised lips” (v. 12). The assumption here is that the effectiveness of the message depends on the how it is delivered. While I certainly believe that a messenger of God should take some care as to how he delivers the message, that is not ultimately the basis for effectiveness. In this case, the effectiveness of response depended on unparalleled mighty acts of God. The messenger’s priority is to take care that he accurately and obediently delivers the message, whether he has reason to expect a good response or not. He can be sure of this: if God has commanded a message to be delivered, he is at work. He has a plan to complete his own purposes. Just consider all the New Testament Scriptures in which God has called his people to speak (Matt 18:15-20; 28:18-20; Eph 4:15 . . .)
Friendship Evangelism Seminar
My dad will be coming up to Boone at the end of February to teach a seminar called "Friendship Evangelism." Here is the info:
Friendship Evangelism
a seminar with
Dr. Wayne McDill
Author and Senior Preaching Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Friday, Feb 26, 6:30-8:30pm Saturday, Feb 27, 8:30am-12pm
The banquet hall of The High Country Home Builder’s Association 755 Hwy. 105 By-Pass, Boone, NC hosted by Highland Christian Fellowship
Find out more about the seminar and download a FREE copy of Dr. McDill’s E-Book
Showing the Face of God: An Inductive Strategy for Evangelism
@ highlandchristianfellowship.org
Two Are Better Than One, part 1
"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken."Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
As "the Preacher" continues through his list of vanities, he seems to make a few positive observations along the way. Here he explains that two people working and living together are better than one. There appear to be four reasons given for this. First, “they have a good reward for their toil” (v. 9). Two people working together produce more than one. This seems obvious by simple addition. But I think more is in view here. Two people working together will produce more than the same two people working individually. Couples, packs, teams, and communities have a dynamic that is encouraging and motivating.
One reason they produce more is also the next and separate reason two are better than one: “If they fall, one will lift up his fellow." Two people working together are better than one because they help one another in weakness and failure. People who work together can complement and fill each other out. Sometimes our individual weaknesses and failure become our destruction. But not if someone is there to help us. It’s like a safety net.
This idea is also tied into the work. Its not just the fallen person who would suffer, but the work. In the context of the mission of making disciples, this is a critical aspect to Christian community. It is not an individual task; we are to work together to accomplish it. And so we are called to exhort, correct, restore, forgive, strengthen, encourage, love, pray for, and bear one another up.
There is one other important dynamic to such teamwork: willingness to be helped. “Well, of course, why would anyone not want help?” PRIDE! We don’t even want to admit we have fallen and need help. Independence and self-sufficiency is the virtue of our culture that makes us weak.
The Purpose and Vision for Highland Christian Fellowship
On Sunday our church (Highland Christian Fellowship) affirmed our Constitution and Covenant for the first time! They describe who we are and who we hope to be. Included is our purpose and vision:
Our purpose as a local body is to
- Love God.
- Love people.
- Make disciples.
Our vision is to make disciples of all nations by leading people to faith in Jesus Christ and teaching them to walk with him by living in loving obedience to his commandments; to accomplish this
- by strengthening families in godly marriages and discipleship of children,
- by building a healthy body active in individual and corporate prayer and ministry,
- by serving the poor, sick, imprisoned, and unprotected,
- by establishing new, reproducing church fellowships, and
- by participating in and supporting the worldwide effort to make disciples of all nations.
Teaching Audio
I have just added to this site a teaching audio widget (located in the right column) with which you can listen to sermons I have uploaded. You can also download or subscribe to my sermons as a podcast. It all works through sermon.net. I just uploaded one I taught on Father's Day two years ago at Highland Christian Fellowship about turning the hearts of fathers toward their children. In it I explain how parenting fits into the biblical vision of making disciples for Christ.
New Life at Our House
I had two very important early morning meetings on Friday in my office. They were not planned meetings. Soon after he got up my son Caleb (9 yrs) came into my office with a picture he had drawn. It was a replica of a drawing I had done for him several weeks ago that depicted the Gospel. But on his picture he drawn himself crossing the "Cross" bridge to get to God. He proceeded to explain that a couple of weeks back he had given his life to Christ, just as I had explained to him, but he just hadn't told me yet. Moments later Josiah (7 yrs) came into my office. He preempted his discussion with me by explaining that he wasn't coming to talk to me just because Caleb had. He explained that he and Caleb had been talking about their decision to give their lives to Christ and had been praying for each other about it. Josiah's main concern was that he was not old enough or didn't really understand it. One of his reasons for this was seeing what had happened with our daughter Bethany (10 yrs). She was baptized when she was six. It was not long after this that I questioned that decision and concluded we had jumped the gun. Last month Bethany came to us believing that she did not really understand what she was doing when she was six and was ready to give her life to Christ. So, I talked with Josiah about this and we both had peace that he indeed understood what he was doing.
Three kids trusting the Lord as their savior in two months! Very exciting. Leading our children to Christ is the most important thing we can do for them. We will continue to disciple them and help them learn to walk in his ways. We are thankful to God for drawing them to himself and for the privilege and responsibility of guiding them in this journey.
The Church Without Walls
I recently read this article: “Crazy Passion: Francis Chan Keeps Pushing and Pushing to Make More and More Disciples” by John Brandon in Christianity Today, Oct 2009. I like some of the things I hear about what he is doing. Here are some snippets of the article:
“In church, rather than rehab people, we just put them in a wheelchair and say, ‘We will do everything for you,’” says Chan. “‘You don’t have to witness to your neighbors. We will send out fliers and do TV shows and evangelize for you. You don’t have to counsel your neighbors; just give them the church’s phone number. Now we are saying, ‘You be the discipler. You have the Holy Spirit in you, and we want to equip you to reach your neighbors.'
"Chan’s long-term plan involves building the church without having a building. . . . The experiment is a way to find out how the church can grow without the limits of a building. . . . The structure is intended to encourage authentic discipleship, where small churches birth more small churches as believers grow and mature, attracting new members. Vanderstelt says the main challenge with this approach is that it requires a shift in leadership perspective.”
The vision of our church, Highland Christian Fellowship, is also to establish new, reproducing church fellowships. And I agree that the approach described above "requires a shift in leadership perspective." They were talking about pastors moving away from functioning as "managers or directors of programs." While this must be done, I believe a more drastic paradigm shift must occur. The above model will work better (if at all) if we are willing to have local, native, non-ministry-as-career teams of pastors who shepherd small, reproducing churches.