The start of a New Year is a traditional time for making New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you made a few for this year. A resolution is a resolving to do a thing. Being resolved means to be decided and determined. However, sadly many if not most of what we call “resolutions” are really just illusive wishes.

I believe the problem starts with an one’s lack of any real, long-term vision. Even as we grow in Christ, often that vision is at best cloudy and unfocused. Hence, resolutions become random, reactionary, short-sighted expressions of weakly-willed wishes. “I will lose 20 pounds.” “I will exercise three times per week.” “I will read my Bible daily.”

But when any action step (resolution) becomes its own vision, true spiritual and intellectual myopia has indeed set in. We are in need of the “Laodicean salve” for our blindness (Rev. 3:15-18) and/or a new set of spiritual lenses to bring the world back into proper focus.

In our cursed condition, we tend to simply let the world impose on us and our children a bad vision of what done-right-looks-like. For instance, we as adults strive for the “American dream” with all its ill-defined, and deceptive “security” and materialism. And, perhaps our kids labor slavishly to look like the latest all-too-sad-clown with his pants down around his knees and perhaps singing or listening to music that you’d see as obscene if you could understand the so-called lyrics. Or, maybe the vision is a sad, pitiful super-model who is border-line anorexic and who uses drugs to keep her face and figure properly gaunt. Or, the choice of vision might be a highly-overpaid individual who has laid his/her life and talents at the altar, not of Baal, as the ancient Jews did, but at the altar of Ball—football, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc.—a modern, more fashionable idol of “enlightened” man.

Humans are not designed to be driven by action steps; we are clearly designed to be moved by honest, meaningful visions of where we need to be and what we need to become. Just watch anyone for a moment when they’re unaware they’re being observed and you can tell something about that person’s vision for the moment and perhaps for his/her life.

And, sadly that vision is usually fairly reactionary and short-sighted.

A book that impacted me early in my Christian walk was a little fable called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I have a framed poster hanging on my church office wall right now depicting it. I had it hanging on my apartment wall when I got married and my wife had it framed for me as a wedding gift. I have always found it inspirational. Written by Richard Bach in the early 70s, it was immediately a best-seller and it is still in print today. The book is about a sea gull who became bored with the life of the typical sea gulls scrumming for food. Jonathan rather learns and perfects his flying ability. And thiis passion for high-flying brings his expulsion from the flock of beach-dwelling crumb-eaters. However, learning to soar into the skies, he meets other gulls who’ve learned the art of flying high. Finally he meets Chiang, the wisest of the gulls who mentors him in the higher existence. Ultimately, Jonathan returns to teach other birds about this higher existence.

The book is probably more humanistic than spiritual, but it is an apt allegorical effort to demonstrate again what the greats have tried to tell us. It demonstrates what Jesus, the greatest of all, was and is trying to tell us—that there is life on a higher flight path here that leads to a much superior existence in heaven. You want to be a low-flyer scrounger competing for the crumbs the world throws out, or do you want to be a high flyer that seeing the big picture lives out her/his grand destiny.

Bach’s work was perhaps a more modern expression of the work of the Greek philosopher Plato. Plato expressed the challenge and distress of enlightenment and “high-flying” in his classic Allegory of the Cave found in his larger work, The Republic. The allegory is a fictional account of a dialogue between Socrates, Plato’s teacher, and Glaucon, Plato’s brother. Socrates describes a scenario in which a group of people were bound in a cave and allowed only to see the wall of the cave in front of them. Behind them is a blazing fire and between them and the fire is a walkway on which people walk with all sorts of things on their heads, casting shadows of such on the wall of the cave directly in front of the line of people. As well, the only the people could hear were the sounds from the walkway echoing off the wall. To those chained in the cave, the shadows and faint echoes represented their reality. It was all they knew.

However, a prisoner is freed and allowed to turn to see the scenario playing out behind them. At first, blinded by the intense light (blazing campfire) previously unseen, after some time of adjustment, the freed man is able to see the association between the fire and images on the walkway, thinking at first that the shadows were the higher reality. Eventually however, the freed one realizes that indeed the fire is the source of light and the images on the walkway were the source of the shadows themselves. The prisoner experiences an even higher reality when taken to the surface, and after some additional adjustment to the even brighter sunlight, is able to see the models of the images on the walkway illuminated by an even greater light. (continued in Part 2 by same title)
 

The dilemma comes when the man remembers his community below locked in a dark, dim world of only faint echoes and fleeting shadows. However, the man will realize that he himself is the enlightened one. He sees that the community below is still living in darkness and ignorance, and if he returns to the community whatever respect or honor he might otherwise receive there would be meaningless because of their unenlightened condition. One can surmise what the response would (usually rejection of course) be by the vast majority of the community if the man were to go try to tell them about what they see as reality is only dark shadows. And further what would happen if he tried to describe for them what true, enlightened reality really looks like—how much brighter and beautiful is the true light and its revelation of the “real” objects above. Sadly, most will not only reject but scoff in resentment (as happened with Christ himself).

The Allegory is meant to describe Plato’s view of “forms” in the “spiritual” world. These forms are the pattern for and are represented by the lower levels of reality in the physical world, i.e. trees, rocks, etc. Forms are the ideals behind the ideas. What the perfect “thing” is and how it is defined.

I know this is heady and philosophical. And while I believe any truth, such as Plato’s, can only reveal the ultimate truths of God, I believe there is a “form” for each one of us. The ideal me. What me done-right-looks-like. What my destiny is when God makes all things new and grants me the perfection that I was created for and which will be granted me finally.

But, in the meantime I find delight in striving with God to grow to that form. To have any lasting, positive effect, all resolutions, goals, and actions need be designed as steps toward that final vision of me-done-right. And, that looks like God. That’s what the Spirit is working to make happen—“we…are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Jesus said we were to “Be perfect…as [our] Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). So, we look to Jesus because we can see him in our minds eye through the gospel revelation, and Jesus is “the exact representation of [God’s] being” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus is the vision and thus we are urged to, “…fix [our] thoughts on Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). He is the vision that will ultimately empower and drive any good and right resolution that we might make. But, only if that resolution takes us closer to being as He.

Jesus is what done-right-looks-like, and as Christians the Spirit is indeed “forming” him within us (Gal. 4:19). So strive to see him. And strive to see him formed within ourselves. Get a solid visual, as best you can, of what Jesus looks like as the living, human expression of the essence of God. Then above all resolve to yield to the Spirit’s work. Resolve to seek God with all your heart. Resolve to yield to that within you that longs to do good, right and lofty things. Then design and write out small, incremental steps in that direction. Keep sighting yourself to that image of Christ that is ever being completed and perfected in your heart.

Enjoy the journey and live in expectation for your ultimate ideal—the real YOU—to be finally realized when Jesus does his final “deal” on you!
 

Growing up we lived way out in the country. There were no street lights, we had no property lights, and my dad would not allow a light to be left on in the house at night. It got really dark, especially when there was no moon. And, I was really afraid of the dark. And for good cause!

You hear said that “there’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark”. That’s just a lie anyway, and in my world there were indeed things to be afraid of in the dark. My brothers. We had a seniority system in our house. And as the youngest of eight children, I had none. Hazing was alive and well in our family system too. The younger ones just needed to be teased and scared some to help them “toughen up” and grow up. As a boy, I guess I especially needed “toughened up”. Sleeping in 90 degree heat in the summer without a fan or air conditioning while fighting off mosquitoes wasn’t enough, I suppose. And sleeping in a bedroom where you could about see your breath on cold winter mornings was not enough to get that toughening done either I surmise as well. I needed hazed. We all did, of course. And, believe me, I got hazed.

I “slept around” (that means I hadn’t been assigned a bed yet as far as I remember) in our house until I finally was assigned a bed with my two brothers closest in age to me. It was a full-size bed and we got really close. One of the brothers was just a year and a half older and we were about the same size (Jack for those that know me). The other was about eight years older than I (Tom, for those that might know him). Tom was one of the two middle children in the family. He’d been “toughed up” really well himself by the two oldest brothers in the family! From the stories I heard it was clear he learned how to torment, I mean haze, from two of the best. And learn well he did.

Let’s see, we had the Tingler. The Tingler was an extremely frightening “thing”. My brother had seen a scary movie by that name. This was some sort of vicious spider kind of creature that did awful things to people. He lived in our room, under our bed (as did other particularly vicious beings and creatures). Now even if we’d looked for him under the bed, which we didn’t, we couldn’t have found him in the mess that lay there. But the Tingler was alive, active, in our bedroom, and to be greatly feared. It was always a wonderful source of torment, when older brother needed.

Then there was the “Middle Man”. This was a very evil person who lived under our bed as well and lived solely to torment me when I managed to get to sleep in the middle. I had wrongly reckoned that in the middle I’d be protected from things that would come into our room via the door (and things indeed did come in through that door to get me). I’d also be protected from things that might burst through the window and/or screen to get me if I slept on the inside next to that window. Hence having no seniority whatsoever, I slept closest to the door in the summer (away from any possible breeze) and closest to the window in the window (when it was cold of course). And, you think I’m lying. I’m not. I woke up a few times with the cover frozen to the window on the inside! (Just before I walked to school barefoot in the snow.)

Because of seniority my oldest of the two got first choice of sleeping position, my favored brother just older than I got second choice, and I got no choice. Hence, my older brother slept away from the window in the cold and next to it when there was any hope of a slight whiff of wind in the heat of the summer. He also got a favored position with the covers as well. So when I told on them to my mom and she made them let me sleep in the middle to be shielded from the lurking evil on one side by my 30-pound brother (I’m not joking either) and by my teenage brother on the other (boy, was I safe!), you guessed it, the Middle Man would show up every time! The main evidence was a hand coming up from the top of the bed trying to “get me”. (Why the heck would a hand want me in the first place, huh?) If I closed my eyes it would reach over my face, and then it’d then disappear when I opened my eyes. I would finally move to the undesirable side each time and then he’d leave. I knew the hand was my older brothers as the smell was unmistakable, but it was still scary. He was scary!
 

One night my two self-appointed insurgent brothers rigged up the vacuum cleaner hose through the bed springs before I came to bed (if you’re too young to know what bed springs were ask someone older). After I got uncomfortably settled in my inside-closest-to-the-door-position, this growling noise began to be emitted from under the bed just below my head. Against all hope, I wished I was imagining it. I wasn’t. This was something new and more ominous than all the others. Perhaps the Tingler and Middle Man had merged or morphed into something much worse. It made noise. It was real. I wasn’t imagining it. I could HEAR it for real! And, my wonderful brothers slept through it! I thought anyway. My older brother had the other end of the hose coming out on the other side of the bed next to his face under the pillow and he’d intermittently clamp it over his mouth to make these wonderful noises.

I wasn’t in the middle so I reasoned that the Middle Man couldn’t be the growl emitter. I surmised the Tingler made no noise. There must be an Inside Man that had shown up or a new creature that had evolved. Well anyway, I was terrified (as is the object of terrorism). I lay there in utter fear hoping I’d just imagined it. Oh no, I hadn’t. This continued for some time and only because I was too scared to utter a sound let alone to be able to yell at my mom. And, just as I started to yell, a hand was clamped over my mouth. You can only imagine how clean and pleasant that was. I’m probably still infected. I know I’m still warped. It took some fast explaining and lots of verbal threats to keep me from telling. I of course knew shunning would occur for an appropriate period of time after each “tattling offense” I committed against these Taliban fighters. Any torture in addition to the shunning would then be directly proportional to the seriousness of any much-deserved punishment they might receive.

Light was a key defense for me though. If I could just get to the light switch when the Tingler or Middle Man or Growler was attacking in the darkness, they’d disappear. More than once I had my brother’s dirty hand clamped over my mouth while I was trying to scream at my mom. And as I noted previously, having your teenage brother’s hand over your mouth and nose is a real fright within itself (Maybe that was indeed the Tingler! I have never thought of that.). But, we did have alligators that lived under our bed too and we had to jump when we got out of bed to keep them from getting our feet. So, it was tricky trying to yell at my mom while jumping a safe distance from the bed from a supine (I like the word so look it up) position and hitting the light switch on the first grab (hoping there wasn’t Middle Man’s hand or a Tingler on the switch in the dark). And, you wonder where I learned to multi-task!

Well one night the Al Qaeda duo used light against me though. These two hooligans actually went to bed early. I knew something was wrong and hoped they were both dying (well, not really, but at least be incapacitated for an extended period), but I stayed up just to be safe from them. At least, they’d be asleep when I went to bed. So after some time, everybody was going to bed and I had to go into our room in the dark to get in bed. I, of course, was scared and was trying to figure out how to get into bed in the dark without stepping on the Tingler, without running into the Middle Man, without being growled at, and without getting my feet bitten by the alligators. A young man with a lot on his mind I was! Well, suddenly the light spontaneously CAME ON! And, my brothers lay there asleep. Yeah right. And nobody was standing in the bedroom door either. So I stood there in this frightened stupor for a moment, frozen in time. I looked at the switch. Nothing. I looked at the floor and it was free of all the feared ones. Eh oh.

I don’t know how long I stood there before I started to turn out the light, get in bed, and stay awake all night terrified, but it was a minute or so. When my brothers realized I was getting ready to yell at my mom, they started laughing gleefully at the incredulity at the light coming on by itself. Well what had happened was that these two budding Hell’s Angels had rigged up a string through the heads of some tacks lined up along the walls and across the ceiling to the other side next to my older brother. When I came in they could just yank the string and the light would come on. A simple enough gimmick. I believe this was a precursor to the more sophisticated versions of roadside bombs with similar ignition apparatuses. They didn’t shout, “Long live Allah” or any other supposedly redeeming testimonies, I don’t recall, but they were really proud of themselves. Oddly, they still are!
 

This was new. Using light to scare me. It had always been darkness before. I really jest about these occurrences as my brothers are some of my best friends now and I loved them dearly then. Both were in fact in my wedding (what was I thinking?!). And we laugh often about our “exciting” childhoods. We were all victims of such and I really did enjoy at least some of it! I knew there weren’t really alligators under the bed but it sure made getting up exciting just to think about it! But, the Tingler now, I think still might at least visit my house sometimes. At least that’s what my wife Tana tells me.

Jesus said, and I paraphrase (some might say “para-pervert”), “Hey guys, this is the deal. The light just came on here. But men like it better dark because they are planning and doing really bad stuff. These guys, the one doing bad stuff, do not like the light because it exposes their evil exploits. Trust me, they avoid it. But people that do what they’re supposed to be doing like the light as it allows them to get their work done, and it lets others to see and verify that they’re doing what God wants” (from John 3:19-20).

Isn’t it strange that Satan will try to use light to scare and intimidate us? Satan used light to sort of scare Eve, making her think she was missing out—“Did God REALLY say…?” (Gen. 3:1). Satan tried to use light to intimidate and lure Christ into playing along with him (and thus into sin)—“If you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’” (Matt. 4:6; Psa. 91:11-12). Two more times in the desert testing, Satan uses God’s word in an attempt to blind Christ’s eyes for at least long enough to trick him. He, of course failed, and Satan left Christ (Matt. 4:11) as James said would happen with us (Ja. 4:7).

But if only Satan can shock us—scare us—with the Light. When we’ve been in the dark for quite a while and a bright light is turned on, it really hurts for a minute or two, doesn’t it? It even scares us a bit. In fact it is blinding, and if you look right at it, you’ll have spots in your eyes for several minutes afterward.

“Did God (Light) REALLY say…?” Boom: surprise, spots in the eyes. If only he can cause spots in our eyes for a just brief moment... If he can but only surprise us with the suddenness of a burst of light, while we have adjusted our eyes to the darkness for even just a time. The fear might just seize us for a moment. But that’s all the time Satan often needs. It just might cause us to freeze up long enough to cause us to fall for another of his shenanigans. “God says we are not to judge. So you should just let them do what they feel in their own hearts.” “God loves everybody and surely you don’t believe there are not lots of ways to God?” “How could a loving God send anybody into eternal fire?” Just for a moment we freeze in fear. Just long enough for our walks to be affected in some negative way. Just long enough to make us fear the Light (the Truth) itself. Himself.

We have been called out of darkness—ignorance, deceit, blindness, evil-living—into Light—knowledge of God, truth, vision, right-lighting (1 Pet. 2:9). But when we live in darkness or as Christians we get used to the darkness again, Satan can and will actually use light to scare us—to scare us AWAY from God. Jesus said something frightening and baffling when he said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23).

This light and darkness things is a big deal. Go figure.
 

The Christmas of 1961, I believe, my brother Jack and I begged and begged for Santa to bring us football uniforms. I’m not talking about football jerseys with some famous quarterback’s name on it. I’m talking real suits with pads and all, designed to damage and otherwise injure young men (or ladies to be fair!). This was an even more important request than the Fanner-40’s we’d had to have the Christmas before (those were play pistols by the way)! They had these mail order football uniforms in the catalogs that came in different colors. We’d seen them in the catalog and we just had to have them.  This was obviously one of our earlier acts of covetousness. I’m also absolutely sure I did not get the color I wanted; and I’m sure precious little Jack DID! I don’t know why I wanted a football suit other than that Jack said I did (I was his Mike-ey—“let Mike-ey try it and see what happens”; “let’s get Mike-ey to do it first and see if he gets in trouble before anyone else does”…you get the picture as to why I’ve needed lifelong counseling, huh?).

So on Christmas morning, there they were. Way to go Santa! In reality, I’ve had issues with Santa ever since that Christmas morning, as he most assuredly promotes violence and cruelty. We were, of course, up before dark and in the living room in our underwear, I’m sure, and so we were ready to don our new football uniforms, pads and all. And, we quickly hit the turf which was mainly dead weeds and bare ground and rocks, in our front yard.  We played to the dim light of a single, bright 40-watt bulb of our front porch. Uniforms proudly donned, football in hand, we proceeded to play two-man football on frozen tundra in the fog. We lived way out in the country on what was a gravel road with a little oil on it to spot up the cars. But, there were NO street lights anywhere.  Rudolph was safely munching hay back at the North Pole with his lighted snout. When it was dark in Tussy, Oklahoma, it WAS dark. It probably was only in the 40’s, maybe even colder, but at six or so a.m. in the dark just after waking up, you can imagine how FUN that was!

Since there were no teams and thus no hand-offs or passes, our game involved getting in a stance and hitting each other. I believe one of us would actually try to run the ball without spraining our ankles on the rough ground in the dark. After one tackle, we were very motivated to break completely free for sure.  And, our mom actually came out there and watched this fracus. She’s probably still laughing now as she rests in peace. In fact, I may need more counseling now that I think about it concerning her abuse! Now, these suits were fabulous examples of how NOT to make football suits; they were pure marketing. The pads were useless and only served to get you to hit someone else thinking you had padding when in fact you didn’t and thus to hurt yourself really, really badly! And, to hurt the other really, really badly too. And, we did that repeatedly. I suppose we did it to somehow justify our intense desires and pleadings to have these sado-masochist outfits of self destruction!

Well, after some minutes of this wonderful fun I finally got my crazy brother to stop pouncing on me, as he often found cause to do, and to go back into the house. The fact that I don’t really remember ever playing in them again will tell you about how much we actually did use them and how much I totally enjoyed the experience of being hit and run over repeatedly by my big brother, and to the glee of my sadistic father. I mean this was sanctioned little brother abuse! Actually, I have really probably have forgotten playing in the uniforms much after that due to post-traumatic syndrome. How do you spell “concussion”?

Oh yes, we’d always had wonderful fun like this. I mean when we were pre-school we got to box.  We're talking fist-fighting with hand coverings. My dad was into heavy-weight boxing and so he decided he’d enjoy some light-weight boxing.  He bought us these "boxing gloves", in this case vinyl gloves with a micro-millimeter of felt fabric inside to give the illusion of padding! After my second concussion, courtesy of my Mohammad Ali clone brother in a 25 pound body, with both of us wearing underwear with actual boxers printed on them, we finally retired from that. So, now we’ll play football and see if we can completely scar little brother for life (which obviously happened). Maybe even complete the course of “siblingcide”!

So yeah, we got our football suits. The beginning of a career I continued up through the eighth grade when my left leg was broken by a guy twice my size in my femur just above and into the left knee. I was playing middle linebacker on the junior high team and it happened on the first play from scrimmage in practice wearing pads that year. After all was said and done, my left leg ended up nearly two inches shorter than the other and I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with the “blessings” of that wonderful experience, an experience that began with the delivery of my first football uniform! I did have one other stint jplaying football.  Jack talked me into playing in high school because my dear father wouldn't let him go out if I didn't.  Oh, fun.  But that joyful activity lasted a month or so before the dear Lord delivered me. Hallelujah! (Ask Jack about why that ended.)

Things that can look so cool and fun, can end up being so un-fun and even violent, as in the case of football. Especially, if you follow some of those roads for a while. It has often been said to “be careful what you ask for, you just might get it”. That adage is oft-repeated because it is so often true!

What have you longed or asked for that you finally got and then discovered there was tremendous pain and suffering behind it? Many have experienced such with friendships, dating relationships, marriages, careers, and other living situations and life decisions. Fancy wrapping paper and cards of love and goodwill cannot otherwise consecrate what will end up being a cruel curse. Often, those gifts are provided by or perhaps enabled by family and/or loved ones who are ignorant themselves or are just “enablers”.

James, the younger brother of Jesus, in a prophecy to all younger brothers said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above…” (Ja. 1:17). Maybe as to say don’t open gifts from your older brother thinking it might somehow actually be for YOUR good. I’m only kidding, as I’m referencing here the giver of all good gifts as being the older brother. However, I jest just to make the point that what God gives you will always be “good” for you, even if it is painful. What the world gives you might seem good at first but will ALWAYS bring pain or things bad results.

James also said, “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (Ja. 4:1-2). The word of God is given to us so that we can come to a wise understanding of what we should ask for and who we should ask from.  And, often what we SHOULDN'T ask for.

Be careful what you ask for. And in life, be careful who you ask for it from. Trust in the Lord and he will make your life go real well (Prov. 3:5).
 

These are exciting but perilous times for our church.  Although, I am writing much of this letter from a personal perspective, I am also writing mostly on behalf of the whole church and our leadership.  We have a tremendous eldership, a great ministry staff, and a wonderful team of leaders at every level and in every part of our church that have and are growing daily in service to God and their work as leaders.  I am honored to be a part of this team.

With that said, I’ll start by saying that from a personal standpoint, I am probably most gifted as a pastor.  Not necessarily a pastor in the bishop/elder sense, but a pastor in the feeder/shepherd sense.  I’ve long had a heart for helping people get on and stay on the right track.  I personally feed and grow on the evidences of God’s work in others’ lives that I get to share in.  I love helping people directly as well as assisting them to find help elsewhere.  I love enabling people to get right with God,  them helping them find freedom from besetting life issues, and just walking along side them in their struggles.

However, my calling in our church is to be an evangelist.  So, I am a pastor living an evangelist’s life.  Now don’t get me wrong, as I do not bemoan that fact, but only to explain it.  Many see an evangelist’s job as simply going out preaching to large crowds and offering a roaring invitation to which scores respond.  I suppose that’s evangelism, but it’s not the general sense exemplified in the New Testament.  Evangelists serve to build and organize churches for the mission.  Evangelists are given visions of kingdom growth and advancement.  Evangelists are given the charge to raise up and mature leaders who can in turn raise up other leaders.  In the organizational sense, elders are pastors and preachers are evangelists.  Certainly both roles function in both ways with tremendous overlap, but nonetheless they are different functions.  Churches today are often not organized most like the early church and in this regard there’s a lack of clarity between the roles of pastor and evangelists.

So personally, I’m an evangelist in that I’ve been called to a mission and a vision.  I’ve been called to call and raise up leaders, enable and empower them in ministry, build ministries around them, help them build ministries, show them how to connect in all parts of the body, and teach them what it means to follow Jesus in this present world as it is.  I’ve been called to challenge them to replicate the Great Commission in their own lives and ministries.

Evangelism is at its cutting edge first sharing the simple message of Christ with others beginning with one’s own life, and then continuing to proclaim that message with one’s words.  It is testifying to and explaining the gospel’s reality in and application to one’s own life.  It is developing a vision for others and instilling that vision in them as children of God, disciples of Jesus.  As they become children of God, evangelism is being used by the Spirit to baptize them into the one body and to be grafted into the community of Christ, the living house of God.  Finally, it is leading them, along with the rest of the community, to repeatedly reenact the gospel of rebirth in others’ lives to the glory of God.  It is building Christian communities that are dedicated to the proclamation of the gospel.  Evangelism is driving Christ back out to the people and to their “neighborhoods”.  Evangelism is escorting Christ into the hearts of others.  Evangelism is replicating the plan of Christ over and over again, individually and collectively, through the generations to the coming of Christ.

My driving internal motivation to evangelize is to pastor though.  Oddly, I’m a little on the shy side when it comes to initial introductions and getting involved in the lives of people I don’t know.  I do it, but I have to make myself do it as it’s not instinctive.  I don’t like to “intrude” in others lives.  But, one cannot shepherd sheep that don’t exist.  One cannot raise up leaders without first making followers.  One also learns quickly that evangelism is a “team sport” and it is most effective, most gratifying, and most complete when done by the body of Christ and not by mavericks and “Lone Rangers”.  I personally adopted two concepts that Paul presented in his own writings to govern my evangelism and pastoring.  In evangelizing, I seek to lead us to “win as many as possible”.  In pastoring, I seek to lead the church to “present everyone perfect in Christ”.  And, these also serve as specifically stated goals and strategies for our church.

In all things ministry, I try never to veer from walking in, and leading others to walk in, “a pure and sincere devotion to Christ”.  I try in whatever I do “to work at it with all my heart as though serving God”, and “whatever [I] do in word or deed to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”.  I realized early on that I am not called, elected, empowered, and/or commissioned because of any goodness in me, but because of the goodness that is God only.  So, I’m free to just go do what I do without worrying about having to be something I’m not.  I just do my best to let God do his “deal” through me and those I serve and believe it all works out how he wants it to.

The DFW Metro Family of Churches, our actual “corporate” name, bespeaks the vision and calling I was given 12 years ago (and really longer ago than that).  But, I believe it generally reflects the vision our eldership and whole leadership team feels called to.  It represents the vision God laid on our heart as a church in some distinct and clear ways.  “Northeast Church” is legally an “assumed name”, a “doing business as” (DBA) name.  We called ourselves the Family of Churches because of our mission to evangelize through planting churches and ministries.  Our 2020 Vision, given in the year 2000, a challenge really, is to plant 50 churches in 20 years.  Time-wise we’re halfway there and we have four specific churches/ministries (meaning our two FOCUS ministries which function as quasi-churches) so far.  

We’ve explained that these “churches” were not to necessarily be traditional evangelical churches as have been generally contrived.  We’ve come to see our two FOCUS ministries as churches in this regard.  Ours are to be “Jesus” ministries—in-the-trenches-ministries—that are built upon Christ’s principles, of course, but that are to be built as true missions.  They are to be ministries of every kind and to every segment.  They are and will be house churches, campus ministries, and niche ministries, as well as more traditional assemblies.  Some will likely morph from one form to another along the way.  These are not to be defined by bricks and mortar and locations, but they are rather to be human temples—communities that Christ can live and breathe in and manifest his glory through to our cursed world.

Our two key strategies, “from the ground up” and “from the inside out”, represent our best summation of how we believe Jesus builds church.  Respectively, he starts from the beginning and re-teaches us about God and ourselves.  And as well, he begins from within the heart and lets true change be driven from the inside out.  The “from the ground up” strategy is a double entendre in that we not only start from the beginning in teaching but also begin from the ground level with our children in truly discipling them to love and adore Jesus.  We seek to free them to worship and serve Him with great joy and in Spirit and truth, as He so desires.  

In our ministry approach, we have built a “loop” from the ground up, a loop we are presently beginning to finalize and close.  We have been, and are currently, leading our young people through consecutive ministries that approach discipling in age appropriate, as well as psychologically and socially appropriate, ways.  We begin with the youngest in children’s ministry (JaM) and then progress them through our junior high and high school ministries (NEXT), college ministry (FOCUS) and post college ministry (Segue).  Those who are called from the outside enter the process at their age and situation-appropriate places.  We recognize there are unique spiritual needs at each stage of development and that by meeting those spiritual needs, growth is natural, progressive, and profound.

Our whole church leadership, beginning with our eldership, fully recognizes that our work is to equip everyone “for works of ministry that the body of Christ might be built up”.  We don’t try to be different for the sake of being different, but I do believe our attempts to exactly emulate Jesus as best we can does indeed lead our ministries to look and feel somewhat different from many ministries and completely different from some others.  We are not here to entertain, we are not here to serve as a place for “Christians” to come punch their proverbial church-duty clocks, and we are not in the business of babysitting lukewarm church members.  We are in the business of producing kingdom soldiers, church workers, and devoted children of God.  And, we do it by all possible means.

We are now at the point of seeing our college graduates from FOCUS and in Segue Ministry begin to step up more and more to join the rest of church leadership and to assume important roles in leading and driving all our ministries.  Batons are and will continue to be passed in the coming years as these disciples take on the roles of ministry leaders as well as evangelists and elders.  We already have some who began in our teen ministry now leading ministries and small groups themselves.  We now see some who began in our children’s ministry leading in our college ministry.  We have some who began in our college ministry leading in overall church ministry now. The loop is closing.

With the loop closing, the “assembly line” will now be complete and a much more aggressive outward, growth focus will necessarily be dictated.  And now to do that, we must, as a church, to step up and step out in our mission and we need to finance it.

Our net giving has indeed risen over the years, but as we have intentionally distributed giving outside of the general contribution in ways to FOCUS and NEXT as well as to offerings for the poor and for India, our general contribution has been flat while infrastructural needs have continued to grow. Our staff salaries (including the FOCUS staff) are generally and mostly paid through the general contribution. By design, we are not a church that pays high salaries. Period. Our ministry staff feels our honorariums to be generous though and no one is complaining. But we all still must live and function in a world that costs and in lives that can sometimes accrue lots of expenses serving others. We are however very honored and thankful to be supported by the contributions of the church to have more time to do our calling. There have been precious few raises in the 12 years of our existence. We have actually had more salaries cut permanently or temporarily than we have had raised. We work really hard to squeeze every dime to do as much as we possibly can. And, most of the ministers are bi-vocational, working additional jobs to make ends meet and to not be a burden on the church. That will continue, of course.

But, as more young men and women are called up to do ministry and as some of these young ministers try to begin to build families and so forth, their salaries will by necessity have to be raised or they will have to leave their paid ministry positions to get secular jobs to fulfill other roles they might otherwise feel equally called to. That doesn’t mean they won’t still be involved in ministry but those who work full-time secular jobs know the challenge of doing much of any ministry “on the side” let alone to lead a ministry and bear the daily burdens that go with it.

Right now, we need to begin giving some minimal support to several of our new ministry leaders. We need to give another minister a substantial raise. We need to further fund the growth of the Wylie church plant. We need to prepare to support the beginning of our University of North Texas ministry (starting January). We also will likely begin a ministry internship program in FOCUS this next year to more aggressively raise up ministers. We also have increased health insurance costs coming up and will need to help pay for rent and additional space as well as for supplies and equipment in Wylie. We currently need to buy a commercial grade refrigerator and a couple more commercial grade vacuum cleaners. In the next couple of years we’re also targeting beginning ministries to Richland College and later to Eastfield College. It’s important for the church to understand that there are always things we can do if we have the funds and just because you’re not hearing fund-raising sermons does not mean the needs are not there. We just try to avoid too much discussion about money and giving lest we over-burden the hearts and pocket-books of members. But, it does have to be talked about and the church does have to be informed.

The elders definitely feel the church is generous in giving.  Just recently one of the elders commented, and the others agreed, that they are amazed at how much the church has given in response to requests and challenges.  So, there's certainly no intention to imply the church is not generous.  The intention is only to let the church know that by raising the bar some and sacrificing some, we can do even more of what is so important to all of us.

We will as always live within our budget though. We put off what we can’t afford and figure out how to pay what is urgent and/or essential. We don’t live and function through debt. Also, we are trying to aggressively reach out and help our own members financially through these holidays and times. Jack and Kyle, two of our shepherds, have taken charge of our church and community benevolence and are continuing to love those in need, while understanding and controlling spending there. They are doing an excellent job. I want you to also know that currently I personally am taking action to reduce church expenditures as well as to increase my own giving. Our whole staff has a “whatever it takes” attitude. We are not “hirelings”. But, it’s time to make some more sacrifices as a body to move our ministries forward. I really fear we’ve gotten a little comfortable and perhaps even a little selfish or greedy overall.

Now, I’m certainly not talking to those who are without jobs, are under-employed, are suffering various challenges and burdens, who already make great sacrifices to give, and so forth. I am talking to those of us who really haven’t been affected financially by the current recession and have more to give if we want. It’s time for us to squeeze more out of our personal budgets into the church budget—the mission. We need members to consider if what’s being gifted or spent elsewhere might be more important to the general church contribution right now. That’s the repository where we get the real financial fuel to drive our leadership/minister development and ministry advancement. I believe it is a time in our mission to be careful that each of us is not too “busy with his own house” and letting God’s house go in need (Hag. 1:9).

Most of our church budget goes to the salaries of the multiple staff members that we help fund. Trust me, we generally are far below averages at every position, especially when you consider the education and talent level of the staff God has and is assembling here. Our staff works creatively and frugally. I would be glad to speak personally to anyone interested about specific salary ranges, ministry situations, and so forth. You would be impressed. We indeed have highly talented and devoted staff members who are most sacrificial.

With all that said, I would like to ask that every member consider giving a special contribution in the first quarter to help us build up our church reserve again. Our overall somewhat inconsistent giving has caused us to have to continually lean on our reserves as well as to forego needed spending, as we work on thin margins. Hence, we need to build up our reserve to give us some breathing room in making spending decisions. Additionally, I would like to ask every member to consider raising his/her giving to the general contribution by at least 10-20%. If you give $20 a week, that’s just $2-4 more dollars. If you give $100, that’s just $10-20 more dollars. If you give $200, that’s just $20-40 more dollars. Most of us could give that much more money just by missing a couple of meals a week, meals that we’d probably actually benefit from missing! Maybe skip a movie a month and just watch one at home. This really is pretty easy money, church, and not all that sacrificial in the bigger picture.

Perhaps some might consider selling unused jewelry, valuables, or household items to make a special gift. Some might consider doing without cable boxes in every room or getting rid of that home phone that is never used. Maybe sell that expensive treadmill you use as a clothes rack and give the proceeds. Then get outside and run in the fresh air away from the TV and noise. Some might want to consider taking on a small part time job once a week or month to give a little more. I will guarantee we can raise our giving 10-20% without any of us suffering. I hope we’ll raise it by even more than that though. The 10% challenge is as a minimum. Some may actually want to feel their sacrifices more though (Remember, “I will not give to the Lord that which costs me nothing.”) and raise their contributions even more significantly.

Although I really try not to notice, I do indeed notice that many of our teens and college students don’t seem to give at church. I know some college students give at FOCUS and that’s great, but the FOCUS contribution generally does not pay for salaries and stipends for FOCUS ministry leaders, and it’d help if some could be given to the general contribution by those who are members at Northeast. College students, you might ask your parents to consider giving a regular contribution to help support the FOCUS ministers, as your parents most assuredly can see the benefits to themselves through the work done for their students.

High school students, surely your love for Jesus and some sense of obligation to help might lead you to give part of your allowance, part of your earnings from babysitting, etc. I know that there would be friends, family and/or neighbors who’d find odd jobs you could do if they knew you were trying to earn it to be able to help drive the church mission. God sees and blesses our gifts based on “quality” more than quantity. You seemingly “small” gifts can be seen as huge to God.

Again, all-in-all, we need to ask ourselves what was asked in the Old Testament, if we are letting the house of God go in disrepair while we build up our own houses. Does God’s work get our seconds? Or, is God truly getting our first fruits? Are we serious about the mission and therefore funding the work of God?!

We are not begging here. We are challenging you. We are not asking for money to build a new building, a new wing, an activity center, offices for ministers, more equipment (our ministry staff mostly provides their own offices, equipment and supplies), above or even “average” salaries for ministers, more creature comforts, etc. We are asking for sacrificial giving for driving the mission, pure and simple. We are asking the blessed to bless others and to dig a little deeper to do so. We are asking those who are the recipients of the greatest sacrifice ever made to make a little sacrifice of their own on His behalf.

So pray about it, consider it, and please make plans to respond in whatever way the Spirit leads you. And, I’d like for you also to please respond to me at Ronnie@worshamstrategic.com and let me know what you are purposing, what your plans are, what the Spirit has shown you, or what thoughts you might have otherwise in response to this letter. You can also talk to me by phone or personally. I am glad to answer whatever questions you might have.

Thanks for your love, your sacrifices, and your commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

I love you all,
Ronnie

I love science.  Although, I left the lab in 1976 and haven’t been back, I do have a major in chemistry and a minor in natural science.  I have 18 hours of science in my first Masters degree.  I worked in a lab for over four years and actually published a minor paper on nitrogen and phosphorous levels associated with catfish farming (aren’t you impressed?!).  So, while I certainly don’t claim to be a scientist anymore, I’m also not just some preacher with a seminary degree spouting off about science either.  Anything about science draws my attention immediately.

Hence, a recent story of a computer hacker stealing a large number of emails between leading climate scientists from around the world caught my attention.  And, it again demonstrates nothing that should surprise any of us—that there is human fallibility and even dishonesty even in “intellectual” matters.  Scientists are just people.  Hence, there are “good” ones and "bad" ones.  Some are very honest to a fault.  Some are most assuredly dishonest to a fault.  Many of the students I attended college with went on to all sorts of professional degrees, and I’m sure now work in important science professions of all kinds.  I personally witnessed a few of them cheating and so forth, and feel certain that those lapses in integrity weren’t just minor blips for some of them.  They surely would continue in that vein to a certain degree anyway throughout their careers.  

My point being that no one should be surprised when scientists err and have moral lapses anymore than one should be surprised when religious leaders err and behave similarly.   The Apostle Paul noted, that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).  Thus, when anyone or group wittingly or unwittingly sets himself or themselves up as super-authorities on anything, we ought to become very wary.   Such pride surely comes before the inevitable fall that will ultimately follow.

Even religious leaders of all kinds, who we all rightfully expect to manifest the highest degree of integrity, have done such.  Christian leaders and their churches and organizatgions have committed some of the most atrocious acts imaginable.  Government leaders have done such throughout history.  And of late, although it is nothing new, many unbelievably harmful examples have been exposed among business leaders.  Power corrupts for sure.  Influence and respect are important forms of power.  And, today scientists have tremendous influence and power and are often treated with what borders on reverence, especially among those whose agendas are most served by their “findings” and “positions”.  Yes, I am aware of how so many pick their churches and their beliefs based on personal agendas rather than an honest search for the truth.

Over the years there have been notable examples of academic dishonesty among intellectuals.  The Piltdown man of the early 1900s, the Nebraska man of just a few years later, and the Ramapithecus found just a few years later all clearly demonstrate the willingness of scientists to commit fraud to gain attention and support their beliefs and causes (you can search any of these examples on the Internet and read about them if you want as they’re well-documented).  In each case, there was tremendous academic support for what were exposed to be complete frauds, even to the point of treating harshly those who had disagreed and “disbelieved”.  And, to be fair, it should be noted that Christian leaders have committed equally atrocious acts of dishonesty and such.  Sadly, “boys will be boys”, I suppose (and women not excluded either).

A couple of noted scientists, I forget their names right now and was too lazy to do the research, even suggested that life came about by extraterrestrials “seeding” life on earth.  I suppose that no evidence that this happened is needed for their theory in their own minds other than simply that life exists.  Of course, it’s much more feasible to them that extraterrestrials did it than God, as we can’t scientifically “prove” God.  But hey, who needs evidence about any alleged extraterrestrials either?  To my knowledge, it was never explained or even speculated on how the extraterrestrials came to be.  Just a minor detail that shouldn’t get in the way of random speculation masquerading as a scientific hypothesis, I suppose.

To bring to light some of the ironies of science, note how science deals with the insurmountable odds against their theories being true.  One such example is from Bill Bryson, writing in “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, discussing at length the “The Rise of Life” (ch. 19).  This is a fascinating book that I’ve been reading.  In presenting problems associated with understanding life’s beginnings, he discusses proteins.  Noting that there may be as many as a million types of protein in the human body and that to make protein amino acids have to assemble in particular orders, he explains that to make a single collagen molecule, 1055 amino acids must assembly in precisely the right sequence.  Thus he concludes that the chances of such spontaneous assembly “are frankly, nil” (p. 288).  Let that sink in.  The chances  are nil of a single molecule spontaneously assembling in the correct order to make one molecule necessary for life.  One molecule, not all of the intricacies of life as we know it!  No spontaneous protein assembly, no life as we know it.  Period.  And, those impossible odds are concerning one protein!

However, after a continued discussion of the astounding odds against life’s spontaneous and evolutionary development through nature, he then counters that, “The bottom line is that life is amazing and gratifying, perhaps even miraculous, but hardly impossible—as we repeatedly attest with our own modest existences” (p. 290).  Even miraculous!  Really?  So, since we exist, it has to be possible for life to occur through natural assembly.  Isn’t “Mother Nature” powerful?!  She even performs miracles!  That’s just dishonest.  And, in my honest and humble opinion, duplicitous and hypocritical really.