Why People Aren’t Getting Married

There are a lot of young Christian people out there who are just not getting married. It’s a borderline epidemic. It was not always this way. It is a problem associated with our time and culture, and we’re not doing enough to address it. Why aren’t people getting married?

1. The Courtship Philosophy. Honestly I think the problem is partly of our own making. Especially since the rise of the courtship movement we’ve been sending young Christians the message that they should not be pursuing a relationship with someone else. They need to stay holy, deny their desire for a mate, and wait for God to meet the need. This kind of message is intended to stop the kind of people who are sleeping around or may be making rash choices.

The Biblical counsel for someone who “burns with lust” surprisingly is not that they go to a monastery until they overcome it. Paul says that they should get married. So I believe the expectation we should set is not that people stop pursuing, but that they need to switch from serial dating to looking at every relationship as a serious progression toward marriage. Now I’m not saying they don’t need to repent and deal with lustful attitudes. It’s just that the Bible does not say “get delivered from lust and then get married”. We need to help them treat their relationships with more seriousness and reverence, contront the lust problem, and avoid dangerous situations.

The real problem with the courtship message however, is what it does to the more passive, more naturally chaste individual. It causes them to stop looking and wait for Mr or Mrs. Right to drop out of the sky. Not that God doesn’t provide, but he always provides in conjunction with effort on our part. We don’t wait for people to just drop out of the sky to come to our church do we? We develop ways to find them and bring them in — often extremely elaborate ones! These people wake up one morning at 30 or 35 and find that there are no legitimate options for them because they have spent a long time avoiding or not pursuing someone. So we’ve stigmatize looking for someone as ungodly, and then when you get to be 35 and you start we think you’re strange for not having found someone, or ungodly for “settling” on whoever is left at that point. So we’re need to actually encourage people to find a mate.

We need to change our mindset so that we stop working against people getting married and start working toward people getting married.

2. Anti-marriage tendencies. For women, it is the side effects of feminism. There are lots of Godly young women in our churches who were never the less fed a quiet feminism through school or family which has told that getting a family is a shackle. You don’t want that until you are 30 if ever. You need to get out there get a degree, get established in a career, and then get married. Unfortunately doing those things will lead you farther away from marriage. You will be more independent, less willing and less able to unite yourself to a man. You will have the issue of two people going in two different directions negotiating who has to lay down what in order for things to move forward. You will have missed out on most of the best years for raising children, and many of the best men as well. This is horrible advice for women. Young marriage may have the drawback of immaturity, but maturing together has significant long term advantages.

Men on the other hand may be given to “playing the field” and “low commitment” although I find this rare for serious Christian men. I think the big hurdle for them is the changes that men have to make in order to accomodate for a woman and a family in their radical mindset. These radical men may have rough communication styles, and expectations that women may find austere. Ever look at the “decor” in a bachelor pad?

The church has work against both of these, educating women about the consequences of “postponing” family and men about what it really means to be a husband.

3. Unrealistic Expectations. Both men and women face this issue although it’s a little different for each. For the spiritual man you might be looking for a girl that is gorgeous and passionate about serving God in extreme ways. Get in line. You may also have “the list” going on, where they need to meet a long list of criteria you feel are essential in a mate. For a woman, you might be looking for fairy tale man, who is both sensitive and understanding, but strong and masculine. He is a great listener but doesn’t rush to “give the answer.” He is a courageous leader, but he would never override you. If these men exist, they are mostly your dad’s age – having developed these skills over a lifetime. So unrealistic expectations are a problem. Both sexes need to learn to look for the hidden gemstone instead of the “perfect” person. I’m not definitely saying you should compromise your spiritual values, what I am saying is that you need to look with God’s eyes on your spouse.

All of this leads me to conclude that churches need to be proactive about marriage.  They need to develop people for it and fight worldly tendencies.  They need to create places where people can meet.   Moreover, instead of a “singles” ministry, which generally is a place people go “not to meet someone.”  The should have a “marriage” ministry.  Where people go to become the person that someone wants to meet, and to connect with that special someone.   Perhaps a couple whose responsibility it is to know “who is who” and to help develop natural situations where they could meet.

Biblical Basis of Covering in the Shepherding Movement

The major proponents of the “covering” doctrine in modern times mostly trace their roots back to Watchman Nee’s book “Spiritual Authority.” While Nee was a neat and insightful writer, we should keep in mind that the second generation became a cult under his disciple Witness Lee so there must have been some error mixed in there! The Shepherding Movement was the first major group to take up the teaching, but even with the failure of the movement in the 1980’s, it keeps a life of its own. John Bevere’s book Under Cover is the most recent and popular restatement of covering theology. And all throughout the Charismatic church this kind of mentality lurks around.

When you are in a group that teaches submission and authority or “covering”, the Scriptural support seems overwhelming throughout the Bible. First there is the shocking instance of Korah’s Rebellion in Numbers 16 ends with the Earth opening up and swallowing them alive! Miriam and Aaron rebel against Moses authority and Miriam is struck with leprosy. David refuses to “touch the Lord’s anointed” in his long trials with Saul, and the Scripture is hard on Absalom who rebels against his father. The teaching follows that we need to treat unjust authority like Saul in the same way that David did. We want to be Davids not Absaloms right?

Jesus himself says that “the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.” He praises the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:9-10 after he says “For I too am a man under authority.” The logic goes that if Jesus was submitted to leadership, how much more should we be submitted to leadership?

Then in Paul we find that “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.” and that “whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God.” Our pastors are authorities set up by God, and so if we resist them, we are resisting God himself. And finally looking in to 1 Cor 11, we find a hierarchy setup: “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” You need to get into line with the submitted order of the universe. God is a God of order after all right? Finally in Hebrews 13:17 we get a direct command “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls”

These are just some of the explicit examples. Once you take up the authority worldview, you will find it throughout the Scripture. The foibles of the Patriarchs for example can be explained in terms of their relationship to authority. This teaching must be true then right? Those who teach this doctrine are correct in identifying a Scriptural pattern of authority and order. Both the interpretation and application of this pattern are wrong, however.

First of all, the Bible does not teach unquestioning obedience to leaders. In fact, the Bible is full of examples of God calling his people to confront unrighteous leadership. Jesus is the foremost. He was basically put to death for his confrontation with the Pharisees. They were the duly established authority of the time. He called them “snakes”, “hypocrites” and a “brood of vipers.” Essentially he was confronting authorities which were in disobedience to God, to re-establish God’s proper authority over all. If Jesus is our example in this as in everything else we should be ready to have a show down with authorities that are in disobedience to God. The apostles took this to heart. In Acts 4:19 and 5:29 when ordered by the duly establish authority to obey, they say “We must obey God rather than men.” There could hardly be a clearer Scriptural precedent. If someone is telling you to do something that you believe is wrong, do not do it!

The Old Testament examples are misconstrued as well. Moses was ruling a theocratic Kingdom, speaking to God face to face, and receiving the Ten Commandments. Which of your leaders do you think possesses the same kind of authority as Moses did? David’s refusal to kill Saul does not detract from the fact that he was not submitting to or obeying Saul. He fled from Saul. In fact, he makes one of his famous statement “I will not touch the Lord’s anointed” statements when Saul finds him in a cave where he had run to. Had he submitted to Saul completely, there would have been no King David, because Saul would have succeeded in killing him. And what about the other examples? Jehu is anointed by God to wipe out the ruling dynasty. So are basically all of the judges.

Finally, let’s look at the only Scripture in the New Testament which really talks about “covering” in an explicit way: 1 Corinthians 11. The hierarchy that is setup there, far from supporting submission relationships is one of the strongest statements against it. In verse 7 it says that “a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God” If we really believe that this passage is about a hierarchy of personal submission, which is questionable, then this passage is teaching that the man should not submit to other men, because the “head of man is Christ.”

What is the author of Hebrews really teaching us when he tells us to “obey your leaders and submit to them,” then? The elders of Christ’s church are the defenders of the flock. They are set in place to defend us, and they take many blows from the enemy in their effort to protect us. Becoming an elder means you are willing to take this heavy responsibility on. We must respect their God-given authority to run the church. If you are not an elder in the church, then it is not your job to lead the church. If you start leading the church without authority to do so, you are in rebellion. This is far different from saying that elders have the right to tell you what you must believe, or what you must do. They have the right to lead the church, and if you participate in that church, you have the responsibility to follow their leadership. If you can not follow, then you can find another church. Most churches that teach “covering” however will try to make you feel as bad as possible for leaving, and usually do not have real elders, just one powerful leader and people that derive their authority from him. In this way they are dangerously similar to cults. Unhealthy church leadership always extends beyond the church and into your private life. By praising you when you do or believe what they say, and condemning you when you do not, they exert authority that they have not been given. It is your responsibility to take back the authority that God gave you over your own life. Anyone who tries to rule your conscience but you is out of line!

Because of the hierarchical worldview of these leaders, they will see anything that is not submitted to their system as being in rebellion. Whether it is another church, a para-church group, or just an individual. If they are not in a hierarchy of submission, then they are not “under cover.” Do not let this keep you from obeying God. Just like every system set up by the enemy, it gains its power from fear and intimidation. If they can scare you into thinking you are in rebellion then you will stay regardless of what kind of terrible things happen to you. Eventually you will either start to behave the way they want you to, or you will become a wreck.

Action Teams

Advancing God’s Kingdom is a multifaceted an seemingly overwhelming responsibility at times. We look at what needs to be done and we are staggered with the enormity of “How can I do all of this” You can’t. That’s why you need a fellowship of people who each do a part. And ideally set it up so that their part doesn’t have to go on indefinitely. First, let’s identify three kinds of people in the church.

1. People to whom you are ministering.
2. People who growing by helping build ministries
3. People who are leading ministries.

Basically, these are the only kinds of people I think there are. People who are just attending and giving really fit in category 1. They need to be awakened and set into a role.

That leads into some obvious questions about the role of the Sunday morning meeting. Our team has discussed this a little bit, and we’re looking at it differently. First we are in the camp that says it is an evangelistic meeting, rather than a church meeting. If you have facility problems, split the church, you’ve done so already. Secondly, we are firmly against having multiple services. It divides your forces, and drains your ministry team. We are looking at the meeting more like fishing. Basically it needs to be set up to “go fishing” for people around a certain topic. Worship, preach to a decision point, and then, here is our innovation — have a “harvest” after the service. Churches have altar time, but we’re suggesting a step farther. A response group. Before the service, figure out who you are fishing for, then figure out who are the best people to catch those kinds of people. Who will give the best message? Who will perform the immediate ministry? Who can help in medium to long term? Plan out your service based on the response you expect to get, instead of what you want to say! This also helps solve the perennial “announcements” problem. Your service becomes an announcement. Instead of urging people to join something, and then preaching about something else, preach for the harvest, and then have it lead into the logical next step ministry.

OK, now this is the next step, how is the church structured? The traditional “Life groups” or “Cell groups” are too often done like an add on to the church and they have no definitive purpose. I propose the “Action Team” as the orienting concept for the church. This connects activity in the churchto the relationships, instead of the two existing in separate spheres, which is unnatural. Everything you do in the church is a kind of “Action Team” Someone in category 3 is leading it, people in category 2 are helping with it, and people in category 1 are receiving from it. Each one is about advancing God’s Kingdom in some way. People in category 1/2 can freely move in and out of them without lots of formality and commitment around joining. Basically it’s a place where you can make a difference. Your category 3 people need to be empowered, under the authority of the pastor or board to own it and drive it. Here’s the revelation: the more owners you have the more momentum you have. Each leader is a franchise owner in a sense. They have a responsibility and the backing of the church, and they basically are responsible for keeping momentum, tapping people to help with different responsibilities, getting resources, etc. The expectation is not just that the people come to the leader, but that leader comes to the people. He or she finds the people that they need, or needs to minister to and tries to fit them in. The general orientation of the leaders of these groups is to work themselves out of a job by raising up the people on the team, or to spawn off other groups, as appropriate. Remember though, these are not Kum Ba Yah groups. They are doing something for God.

Another thing I’m going to propose is that the Action Team is not a meeting time, it’s a team. It’s a set of relationships pushing for a goal. You don’t “go to” a team. You play on it. I’m not saying that people don’t meet, but I’m saying that basically the leader moves it forward, and he or she pulls other people in as needed. When you become a part, you expect to relate to the leader, do stuff at random times, etc. Another great thing about this concept is that you can have people logically play on multiple teams, even leaders can play on the team of another leader. Because different teams are doing all kinds of different things at different times it looks like chaos, but it’s not, because the leaders are empowered to do things, and each is trusted to push their own ball forward. They report results to the board (including if they are board members) and that becomes the point where any needed collaboration occurs.

Another thing about the team is that it involves training. It’s work, it’s fellowship, but it’s also an education. Every leader should train his or her leaders on an ongoing basis, also inviting other leaders of the church to train and activate the people. Here are some example action teams:

• Deliverance and Inner Healing Team.
• Street witnessing team.
• Administration team.
• Worldview ministry team.
• Campus ministry team.

One of the hidden hindering dynamics we talked about in the previous post was that normally you have paid people trying to lead unpaid people. This can be quite difficult. From a dynamics perspective, I think unpaid people leading unpaid people works best. All are working with equal motivation and time constraints. Then it’s not about someone trying to “get people to do something” it’s more about a bunch of people doing something together behind the initiative of a leader. The understanding for everyone is that if their work begins to lead in a direction where they need financial resources including salary, the church will back them up.

An Empowering Ministry Model

Maybe you read the last post and you are thinking, “This guy must be house church.” Or “He doesn’t know how much work being a pastor is.” I’m not, and I do. I’m just realizing that the core problem we need to solve is how to give rather than consolidate responsibilities. What’s needed is a new conception of the leader of the church. So I’m working through an alternative model of how to enable people to grow. Here are my working thoughts.

1. The leader of the church should be the conductor of the symphony not the star of the show. The leader’s job is to maximize the fruitfulness and growth of the people on his team, and their job in turn is to do the same for those they lead. For those who see things through an authority paradigm, let me put it this way: you’re not divesting yourself of authority, you are making it less visible. Think to yourself, “Whenever I as leader take on a responsibility, I’m taking it from someone else.” Furthermore, when I take “important” jobs and give away the “unimportant” jobs, I’m communicating that I’m important and others are unimportant. Ouch. That will not build team ministry, I promise.
2. “Church” should be seen as a fellowship of ministers rather than a place, a service, or a gathering. My Biblical picture of this is Nehemiah. Basically everyone had a place along Nehemiah’s wall regardless of their vocation. All held a load in one hand and a sword in the other. My secular picture of this is a Partnership. In a partnership there are many owners. In a corporation, everyone works works for the CEO in a pyramid structure.
3. The primary job of the fellowship is to grow people, and identify the place along the wall where they will make the most difference and find fulfillment, and then to help them do it! This means provide the people, the training, the money, any resources needed to help people build God’s Kingdom in the way they are passionate about. Most churches operate on one of two extremes they either push people into roles they aren’t necessarily excited to perform, or they encourage them to “find their destiny” or “go ahead and start something.” Neither one of these will get the job done. We have to show people what there is to be done, and give them opportunity to walk in one of those paths before they will know.
4. Roles are fluid, just like people. People grow and situations change. Moreover, many people have a wide variety of talents. That means we need to stop thinking about a particular ministry as a long term “calling” and more like a short to medium term “role.” I’ve done kids church, adult education, worship, prayer, pastoral counseling, etc. If someone had limited my life to one of these, I would have been stunted, and someone else would have missed their opportunity to grow.
5. Resources should chase results. As a fellowship of ministers, we can think of ourselves like an investment group. We want to invest in the places and people that are getting results at that time. If we think giving the staff a raise will produce more results, we should do that. If we think that investing in a better website or facility will produce more results we should do that, but the bottom line is that we should make effort to economize our time and money and then invest it where it’s going to do damage to Satan’s kingdom.

These things change the game for the ministry men in the church. Instead of a race to get into the leadership seat where there is freedom and pay, it’s a team sport to grow God’s Kingdom. Now this does not mean that we never put people into full time ministry, it just means that we make that decision with different glasses on. Perhaps the first person to be paid is a young single guy who can evangelize full time for a thousand dollars a month and place to sleep. Maybe instead of hiring associates, we find ways to farm out the “counseling” to guys who have other jobs. Maybe we even give them a stipend for the sacrifice. Why does it sound crazy to us to pay a member of the congregation to minister part time, but it doesn’t to pay someone to do the same thing full time? Maybe our traveling guys really get priority. The fellowship makes a pointed effort to keep people out on the field advancing.

You can get away with not having the senior leader paid for a lot longer when he is not the personal incarnation of prophet priest and king. By the way, few men are better at all three roles that the best of exemplar of each from their congregation. If he is not preparing every week for every sermon, and doing most of the counseling, and making most of the decisions, then the investment needed on his part is much lower and comparable to the other members of the team. Rotate the preaching responsibilities. Spread the counseling around. Focus on empowering others to grow and advance. Part of this is by not hogging the responsibilities. This doesn’t mean you should not ever go full time, but do so when it meets the “results” criterion above. Once you reach a point where the responsibilities are shared, but it is clear that making you full time is going to really help the ministry, that’s a reasonable time.

Paid Pastor Problems

If you’ve been around enough churches you know that the perennial problem is getting everyone involved. Pastors look for strategies to get people involved, but sometimes it feels like pretty much nothing you can do, outside of becoming a cult, will get more than 20% of people doing anything. The team and I have been reflecting on this lately, and I’m starting to have some thoughts about what needs to happen. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to hit some sacred cows. The firs thing is that I think the “full time pastor” model promotes several things which really stunt involvement. Now before I go any farther, let’s be clear that I’m not against full time pastors. I just want to point out a few issues with what happens in this model by default. Secondly the vast majority of pastors are great people working as hard as they can to serve the people of God, so what I’m talking about is structural, not personal.

First, most we don’t recognize the conflicting messages we are sending. We say “this is your church” but at the same time we are setting all of the vision, and making all of the decisions. The reason we end up having to say “this is your church” is because everything we do is communicating the opposite. Also we might say or think “I want people to get more involved” while at the same time we’re being paid to minister. To a lot of people in the pew we just asked them to do for free what they are paying us money to do. The motivated Christian doesn’t see it this way though, because what they really want is the chance to minister.

Ironically, that is the second problem — the minister is doing all of the really cool stuff that the motivated guys want a chance to do. He’s making the major leadership decisions. He is doing almost all of the preaching. He prays and prophesies whenever he wants to. I’d say at least 90% of the hard core Christians I’ve ever known wanted to be full time. Because, basically it’s a pretty cool job. If you’re sold out to God and properly gifted, even with it’s difficulties, it’s a dream job. We’re sending our motivated guys the message that the end all be all of the Christian life is being a paid pastor. Now we don’t actually think this, and in fact most pastors will say “your ministry is more important than mine because you touch more unbelievers.” But the reality again is that for the motivated guys, they would love to be us if they could. Lines like “that’s not your calling” will not make them feel any better. What will happen if we don’t make room is that guys will grow to a point and then leave to start their own ministry because there isn’t room for them in our house.

This leads to the third issue. Because the pastor does all of the cool stuff, is able to spend a lot of his time focused on God oriented stuff, and has the support of everyone else, he becomes very strong in the Spirit while the rest of the congregation, especially the men do not develop to nearly their full potential. So you can end up with one spiritual giant ministering to a lot of people that don’t seem to grow beyond a certain point.

The fourth issue is the consumption of resources. Salaries are a huge portion of any church budget. When our default model is to pay people to do the ministry, that means that most of our resources will go paying pastoral salaries. That is until we get so big that we need a building, then it is a split between the building and the pastoral salaries. We should remember that the greatest apostle of all time actually worked making tents for part of his ministry. This should be a message to the modern day “apostles” who would find such a thing far beneath them.

Wesleyan Revival Structures

Much has been said of “Apostolic Movements” of late. These are supposed to be a restoration of the pattern of the first apostles. Too often these “apostolic” movements are just large churches built around an extraordinary leader who has planted a few satellites. What is needed is an explosive first century style revival movement, where the Gospel spreads like a flame so fast that can not be extinguished. I believe the closest thing we have to a well documented apostolic movement in modern times is the early Methodists, particularly in America where the frontier was opening up new lands at a remarkable speed. The Methodist “circuit riders” under the leadership of Asbury tamed an entire country as rapidly as it could be settled. Now, certainly some of what has happened in places like China, Africa and Brazil rivals this, but little study has been done on it yet.

The question is how did they accomplish this, and can we reproduce it today? I have been reading about it, and have identified the following principles so far:

Go where the people are. In the old days, simply going out to preach somewhere was an event, since there was nothing else in particular to do. Today it’s a kind of oddity. The Methodist circuit riders went all throughout the countryside, sometimes going house to house, and scheduling meetings for themselves when the would return. The culture has changed, but the principle remains. The modern church has planned almost all of its evangelism strategies around getting the people to come where we are. We have to go where they are -physically. In inner cities, emergency rooms, coming out of bars and clubs. Anywhere that we can find people who might listen, we have to go. We have to be on the ready for a “revival moment” in our regular activities too. Revival happens where the people are.

Emphasis on regular people. Methodism was so popular partly because it was so egalitarian. In a time where hierarchy had been the norm, the Methodist gave regular people a big stake in the game. The itinerants were paid (a small sum) but the local preachers were regular working people who had a passion for the work. When we focus on people who are paid to pastor, the expectation quickly becomes that they are paid to be the God people, and we just relax. The other aspect was that regular people relate to regular people. A highly trained clergyman is in a different world than an average person giving their testimony. This led to “wildfire” at times, but it was better to have that than no fire.

Young Single Men. Methodism drew upon those who had nothing to lose and were looking to make a difference for God. These were the men who could most easily be shaped and who were glad to go into hard places.

Motion. Once you stop moving you are in maintenance mode. The dynamic nature of the early Methodist movement, and the extent of their travels is the stuff of legend. Asbury himself rode 250,000 miles in his lifetime. People were trained “on the field.” They did not stop to go to school. They studied while they were going. Wesley and Asbury had very high expectations of personal discipline for the early itinerants. There was not time to waste.

The word apostle means “sent ones” yet too often in our ministries the structure looks more like “exalted ones.” I am meditating on what a rapidly expanding ministry would look like, so this is a work in progress, but my intial thoughts are that we need:

1. A fiery message.

2. Itinerant men supported by the church who will go to reach lost people where they are.

3. A system to catch the people that are stirred or awakened by the itinerants. This system should not be focused primarily on fixing people, but primarily on putting them into the harvest as well. The “fixing” has to be a byproduct, not a goal.

More on this later.

Strategic Evangelism

To all of the observations in the last post, I would like to add one more that I believe is usually missed: evangelism is a team sport. In fact, when you look at the Biblical metaphor of the lost person as a “slave” to the world, evangelism is more like a prison break. If you were to break someone out of prison, you would very unlikely do it all on your own. You would develop a plan, marshall your resources, and spring the person out. I suggest that we do the same thing. This is what I’m going to call strategic evanglism. Now this does not mean that I think we should “love bomb” people like a cult does, where you send a bunch of people around to act real nice and suck them into something that isn’t really that nice. What it means is that whenever a member starts to have a response from someone that they know or have met, we should leverage the resources of the entire community to identify the best way to bring them over the finish line.

If you’ve done any level of evangelism at all, you know that getting people to ask Christ into their lives is just one step on what can be a rocky road. In the prison, what stops you from getting out? Guards. In real life the guards are Bad relationships and personal demons. Once you start to break someone out of the prison, these guards will do everything they can to get them back, and let’s be honest — too often they are successful. When you start reaching out to someone you have thrown down the guantlet with the devil. It’s not time to play paddy cake, it’s time to win. The steps above will get you “live” people that want more, but how do you get them from interested to committed? Here are the elements of strategic evanglism.

1. Strategy – Convene an “assessment team.” This group, comprised of a leader, the outreacher, others with evangelistic gifts, and an intercessor, should discuss where the person is.
2. War of Ideas – Identify what resources would be most appropriate for reaching this person. Today there are mountains of resources out there that speak to almost anyone on the planet. There are resources very specific to football lovers, baseball lovers, unbelieving Jews, belieivng Jews, military types, muslims, atheists, etc, etc. Don’t use a bazooka when you could use a rifle. You should identify and purchase the books, movies, tapes, etc, that will directly touch the people you are reaching out to.
3. War of Materiale – Identify their needs and see if someone can help to meet them. Sometimes a person has an obvious needs. If you can help to meet this need, their heart will soften.
4. Air War – Pray. I don’t just mean a couple of “please God” prayers while you are falling asleep. I mean that the person who is reaching out to them needs to pray for their soul, believing that God will bring it from death to life. I also mean that the intercessors of the churchneed to take this to God and wrestle for this person’s soul. If you win in the Spirit, things will happen in the natural.
5. Ground War – Identify what other people would be most helpful in reaching the person. A lost person will usually be glad to meet another Christian before they are willing to come to a church. Is there anyone in your church that they really should meet? If they are really academic, maybe there is an academic type in your church. If they do manual labor, maybe there is someone who does that as well… Who are the people in your church that will connect with this person possibly even better than the person who initially reached out to them.
6. Prison Break - Bring them into the community. At a certain point, it’s time to get them in the doors of the church or house group. This needs to be a place where they will hear the saving Gospel. Do not have a meeting where you bring unbelievers but do not preach the Gospel. People fall through the cracks because the Sunday they came the message was on the second toenail of the left foot of the beast. It’s even better if it is a place where you have deep and poewrful worship. God moves on people in the worship. Your congregation should do more than greet these visitors. They pray in their hearts for their salvation. I remember when a friend of mine brought a Jewish girl to church. Because I was invested in the process, I prayed that our Jewish pastor would mention in this sermon his Jewish roots, and he did! As soon as this happened, her head went up and at the end of the meeting she went down to altar to get saved and was very interested in the Jewish aspect. What a difference the prayer can make!

Once they give their lives to Christ, the job is not over. In fact, many are lost in this phase, because the enemy will now send out a “team” to bring them back into the prison. And believe me, if you’ve ever worked with these situations it gets to the place where it’s totally obvious. They are going along fine and then the old girlfriend that broke his heart 9 years ago calls up and wants to get back together, or the father forbids them to come back to school. Basically any area where the enemy has control, he will use it to try to manipulate the person back into the world. He will pull every string of weakness, and use a variety of unbelievers to drag the person back into the prison. What can we do? The first thing we have to do is be aware that this is really what is going on. When you break out of prison the alarm sounds. The same things happens here. The enemy wants them back. Plan to win. This involves a series of new steps.

1. The Real Gospel – When you get them saved, make it very clear that they are turning control over of their life to Jesus and that they are turning away from a life of sin. If you do not include this, people will respond to your offer that are not ready to proceed with God. You need the right foundation to proceed.
2. Deliverance and Inner Healing - Right away when someone is saved you want to break as many chains as possible. Have a team whose job it is to meet with people. They need to be specially trained. After the person responds to Jesus the person who reached out to them should explain that there is a team in the church that is specially trained to help them get freedom from the various areas where they have struggled, break their ties with the world, and make them firm with God. The team should be ready to work with them right after the service if the person is willing and able, and if not by appointment as soon after as possible. The person needs to renounce their ties to the various schemes of the devil. Take them as far as possible, and be prepared to show from the Scripture what is going on. This preempts the demonic “prison guards”
3. Physical Healing – Do not neglect to offer Physical Healing. Their faith is high and God is ready to meet their every need.
4. Baptism with the Holy Spirit – If you get this far, offer the person the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Explain how now that you have removed all of the other things that were in their life something needs to take their place. The same faith that got them saved will manifest in the speaking of tongues.
5. Baptism with Water – In many churches baptisms happen much later. In the New Testament they happen right away. This is where the power is. Find a way to have a water baptism in the presence of others as soon as possible.
6. Testimony – Telling others what God has done for them is an important part of breaking free from the world, and it’s an important part of being certain of what happened to them. They should tell the congregation what God has done for them, and they should also tell their friends and family what God has done for them. This will push some away and draw some closer. This preempts the relationship “prison guards”
7. Fellowship – You can’t have people getting born again and hoping that they will make it through a week to come back again. Could you imagine doing that with a baby that was just born? They need some fellowship. The team that has been reaching out to them should make a point of hanging out with them, and bringing other people too. If there is some kind of mid-week activity to bring them to all the better.
8. Instruction – They need the foundations of truth while they are open to them. Get them in the Bible right away. The book of Matthew is good because it gives a foundation of Christian morality and belief. In addition, use a foundations manual of some kind to start to lay a firm foundation in tricky areas.

This is a lot and it is intense. It’s supposed to be. This creates radical New Testament converts, and it creates major disarray in the devil’s kingdom. In all of this, I suggest moving as fast as there is grace to do. In other words, if can do a lot on the first day and week, that’s great, you’ll get a huge amount power out of it. Encourage and help But DO NOT FORCE. They need to make the choice to take each step on their own. If you push them over their will, you’re getting cultish and you’re ultimately hurting them. When you break out one person like this, the disarray it creates for the devil and power it channels from God will break out others and now it’s starting to look like and old time Holy Ghost revival. Praise the Lord!

Survey of Evangelism Methods

There are several major theories of evangelism out there.

Fundamentalist Evangelism – This method became popular in the early part of the 20th century and has carried on in conservative groups down to this day. The basic approach is that everyone must hear the gospel. It involves going door to door, passing out tracts, or accosting people on the street. The goal of each of these encounters is to get someone to pray a prayer of salvation with you. This generally requires a lot of stamina and courage because it involves being rejected a large percentage of the time. In addition, during the process I often wonder if I’m not pushing some people farther away.

Seeker Friendly Evangelism – On the other end of the spectrum is the approach that says we should create church environments where non-believers are comfortable and then find ways to get them to come. Getting comfortable involved toning down the message, adding good coffee, saying things like “the Bible works for me,” etc. The main problem with this is that it’s very easy for people to go to church there a long time and never have a true conversion to Christ. Easy to get in the door, hard to get “to the altar.”

Power Evangelism – This approach says that what brings people in is the power of God. We should heal, prophesy, interpret dreams, and pray deliverance prayers over the lost and they will come to Christ — that is what Jesus did. The problem with this strategy is that it can be like building a baseball team around always hitting home runs, or a football team on “hail mary” passes. When something miraculous happens, there is no doubt it has a powerful impact on bringing people to Christ, but it also tends to make people feel excused from doing the more basic evangelism activities. Instead we get focused on getting enough power from God to have one of these power encounters.

Servant Evangelism – Pioneered by Steve Sjogren of the Cincinnati Vineyard, the idea here is that by serving people in uncommon ways, you can open their hearts to God. Instead of passing out tracts on a hot day, you will be passing out water. Instead of knocking on your neighbor’s door with a Bible, you might be cutting his grass. There is no doubt that this method does in fact open people’s hearts, and it is definitely lower stress than confronting them all the time. I’m going to put in this category also approaches which focus on doing good things for marginalized groups like the poor and elderly. By meeting their needs, the gospel is able to go forward.

Divine Appointment Evangelism – This method says that God will put people who are ready in our paths, and we need primarily to be ready to give them the Gospel. Larry Tomczak has developed this idea. He carries his personal testimony in the form of a tract and is on the lookout for anyone who could be ready to receive the gospel. He will interact with them, and often give them his tract. The key to this theory though is that you do not need to touch everyone, you just need to touch the person who is ready.

Queen of Sheba Evangelism – The Queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth to see Solomon in all of His splendor and encountered God in that way. This theory goes that by building great buildings, awesome music, big business, and otherwise impressive structures, the World will come to us and realize that God must be among us. If this does happen, I’ve never actually seen it. Normally this is a way for all kinds of worldly pursuits to come in the door of the church.

Each of these methods, except perhaps the last, has an insight that we can take as the basis of another model. Here are some principles I’d like to suggest

1. Hell is real and there is urgency around reaching out to people. We must take definitive action.
2. We need to be on the lookout and ready at all times to reach out to someone.
3. We need to have a full toolbelt ready in our outreach. This means a business card at minimum, but it also means the power of God. Healing, prophecy and the power of God are essential.
4. We need to have a place to bring them once we have reached out to them. Many encounters will just be a small step in a person’s conversion. If you are going to start reaching out to people, you need somewhere to bring them as a next step.
5. We should scrub the environment we are bringing them to of “weirdness.” By that I do not mean the truth, or the Holy Spirit. What I mean is things that make coming to our church or group an unnecessarily strange environment. This means uncontrollable laughter, rolling around on the floor, etc, are not appropriate for a meeting where there will be unbelievers.

Thoughts on Being Charismatic

How do you strike the balance between being a wild charismatic church and a dead one? I think there are a number of underlying tensions that must be explored.1. Hunger. I firmly believe that we are supposed to “earnestly seek the Spiritual gifts, especially prophecy” The orientation of pursuit of a deeper supernatural encounter with God is critical. Yet, the difficulty is that this is a defining feature of the Charismatic thing we don’t want to be. We need to be able to distinguish the healthy hunger from the unhealthy. There is a reason that we keep ending up in unusual churches when we’re seeking people who are doing the things of the Spirit — that’s because these are the only people who keep seeking it.

2. Authority. Authority is a major issue which underlies the two camps. In particular the authority of man. One rejects it, one emphasizes it. Those that reject the authority of man do so on the basis of accepting the authority of the Spirit to do whatever he wants, yet this is often cover for everyone doing whatever they want. Those who recognize the need for it slowly develop to the place where they don’t yield to the authority of the Spirit in His desire to touch individuals at many points. How we deal with authority will have a lot to do with how the Spirit moves in our church.

3. Ostentation. I have to say that I secretly enjoy watching banner ladies and even doing an occasional wave myself. There is something liberating in it. Yet at the same time, I would not regularly attend a church where there were banner ladies unless other aspects were rockin’. So that’s a bit of a paradox. Jumping up on the stage today and being a “ballerina” were two classic examples of behavior that disrupts the seriousness and reverence that should be accorded a worship service.

4. Focus on outward activity. If we were to touch just one belief that would eliminate the Charismatic silliness, I would say it is the belief that doing a specific outward action is accomplishing inner spiritual work. This is a core Charismatic belief. I think what we actually believe is that when inner work is accomplished, you will outwardly express it. So if you believe that waving your banner is declaring peace in the “atmosphere” then of course you are going to do it! In fact, you should be encouraged to do it!

5. Decorum versus Loosening Up. Most people are oriented to be concious of how they appear to others. In this situation I tend to think that if you’ve never had a good shout or jump or run because you were excited about the Lord, then I think it would serve you well to have one. I’m glad I got into some of these crazy environments early on because it helped me relax about my identity and not worry about others, be self-concious in worship, etc. Maybe part of the root cause of where we are is that Charismatics were trying to get people to loosen up. Get them to “raise their hands” etc. And since a person who is able to raise their hands is showing openness to God, this becomes “more spiritual” the looser you are.

I personally admit to having been an “encounter seeker” for a while. In my case it was because I believed that was how I was going to get helped. If I got an encounter, then I would get freedom from besetting sin, etc. During all of that time, I never had an encounter though. In fact, at one meeting, I prayed for a group and they all claimed to have been deeply touched by God but I felt nothing! That was a bit discouraging at the time. Eventually I got over that as I began to see that I didn’t need an encounter to get freedom, and more importantly I didn’t know how to have my own encounter in worship at all. Also, I was insecure because I felt that I had to have this special experience to really be a Christian. As those things began to change, I was less enamored with the encounter itself.

On the other hand, in a church I visited recently, I shared my Paul Cain experience and the first thing they said was something like “well it’s not really about a prophecy, it’s about x.” What this communicated to me was “your experience was not important, and we don’t want to try to replicate that for others” I’m sorry, but the experience was critical for me, and I know it would be for many others. Don’t dismiss the Holy Ghost!

One key thing that emerged for me from the whole weekend was how our different life experiences inform our perspective of what to do to reach our common goals. We want to give to others the “thing” that God used to touch us. That could be a specific experience, a discipleship relationship, a specific teaching, etc. That history makes us who we are and gives us a passion for what we think is important. I think being aware of how that history impacts our approach is also helpful when trying to discover the best ways to reach our shared goals.

So I think one question to explore is what is it that people are actually seeking? Maybe it’s insecurity, pride, lack of closeness with God, or inability to experience God’s love that is driving the “seeking the gift.” If you touch those, you get the root. I think there is a downward spiral too. The cheapening of the real means there is less of it, which means people are more hungry for it. If you’re going to a church where you regularly experience a touch from God, then you don’t feel like you have to chase something.

Starting a Revolution

Part of what is on my heart is a shift in the current Church culture because of the changed lives that will result: A “Reformation” or a “Revolution”

Starting a revolution requires several key components.

1. The right cultural moment. Every indication around us is that many many in the Church are very hungry and don’t know where to turn.

2. A highly dedicated and persistent group of men.

3. A message. These men unite around a core set of principles. Specifically they agree about what needs Reforming. This allows them to gain broader momentum than just a small group that agrees with them.

4. Oratory. Every revolution needs impassioned, “no holds barred” type speakers to enflame people to action.

5. Literature. The literature is designed to put meat onto the bones of the preaching. It feeds the people who have been awakened. Literature travels far and wide.

6. Young converts. Every revolution is formed by a collaboration of a few shrewd older men and a band of young hungry men who will do anything for the message.

7. A school. Every revolution has some kind of training vehicle to disciple people into its worldview.

8. Funding. Every revolution is secretly bankrolled by one or more weathly people who want it to happen. This puts workers into the field, pays for teachers in a school, publishing of literature, etc.

It’s clear that the message itself must be revolutionary enough to overturn the status quo, but no so revolutionary that it alienates the people it is trying to liberate. A revolutioary message should cause many people to say in their hearts “finally someone has spoken up”