The Roots-Up Church

Ages ago when the earth was young, I went to seminary and wrote a paper on the strategies for making churches healthier. There are always things to change in a church and I wanted to know what we should focus on. I wanted to know what the ‘right’ way of doing church was, if there was a right way. My head was so full of ideas from seminary that I needed some kind of tool to sort out what I should be aiming for and how to achieve it with a large group of people so we were not all pulling in different directions.

Even back then there were many books written on the topic. Some said that what the church needed was more personal evangelism and gave guidance on how to do so. Others centred on what was called ‘warfare prayer’ and felt that since the church’s primary battle was spiritual it needed to be handled by special prayer. Still others wrote from the perspective of their large churches and sought to replicate the success they had.

Eventually, a large survey was undertaken to try and find core principles for church health and growth that were true across all cultures and sizes of churches. Just reading that now makes me think that they were aiming for the moon! Nevertheless, this survey was completed by about a thousand churches over six continents. This was compiled into a book called ‘Natural Church Development’. To make a long story short, the NCD survey verified many assumptions about how churches should be run and debunked others.

For example, it taught that one of the key focuses of healthy churches was evangelism or what they described as ‘need-oriented evangelism’. The book describes this as evangelism that is focused on the “questions and needs of non-Christians” rather than bringing them into a program where pressure is placed on them to convert. It was also discovered that there was considerable benefit to finding people in the church who had the gift of evangelism and intentionally directing them to this ministry. 

Need-oriented evangelism was only one of eight ‘core characteristics’ that were found in healthy churches. The survey determined how each of these could be measured in a congregation and found that these eight characteristics needed to be at certain levels for a church to be healthy and growing. Some of the others had to do with organization and leadership but a significant determinant of whether your church would grow and be healthy, no matter where you lived, was the spiritual temperature of the individuals in it. Your leader could be a great preacher and your boards could be structured superbly, but unless the average person in your church could answer “yes” to questions like, “Do you find prayer to be an uplifting experience?” your church was probably not healthy
and growing.

. . . a significant determinant of whether your church would grow and be healthy, no matter where you lived, was the spiritual temperature of the individuals in it.

Years ago I was the minister of a church that took the NCD Survey. It said we were low in an area called “Passionate Spirituality” which measured things like how on fire people were in their faith and how enthusiastic they were about the church. You can see how this would be a tough area to ‘fix’ in a whole congregation of people. It is like the pastor would have to get to know each member deeply enough to assuage their doubts, build up their areas of faith, and to show them what a real walk with Jesus looks like. As a young pastor I am not sure any of my efforts did much to build people up in this area but I think if I could talk to my younger self I would advise him to consider steering the church towards discipleship. One minister would never be able to do all of these things himself, but maybe if all the mature believers took up this load it might be accomplished. I think we could call a church that did that ‘discipleship-focused’.

A discipleship-focused church has at its core the idea that the life of the church comes from the depth of spirituality of its members, just as the life of a tree comes from its roots not from the decorations hung on its branches. Emphasis is placed on developing one’s prayer life, holiness level, and intimacy with God. This may mean the church tries to create small groups that are safe enough for people to share their deepest truths in. It may foster even smaller groups of three people where time is given for them to really get to know each other and to help each other focus on God. We see Jesus Himself spending time with three people, twelve people, and sometimes larger sized gatherings so discipleship does not have to be done in only one size of group. However, the larger the group the less willing the participants are to be genuine and to talk about what is really going on inside them. We all have our masks and we tend to put them on when we don’t trust the people around us.

How Discipleship Works in a Church

I think one way of looking at what discipleship is trying to accomplish at a church-wide level is to think of a church from the perspective of whether the life of the church is causing organization and programs to form or if the organization and programs are there to try to breathe life into a dead church. My role model for this is the small, new fellowship of believers meeting in a hall somewhere. Not to say all church plants are healthy but let’s imagine we find one that is. There they are, most of them new Christians or vibrant Christians who have taken a chance and started a new church. The fellowship is real because they feel connected with God and with one another. They are a gathering of fellow believers and find lots of time for worship and fellowship since their church is quite simple and program free. What we call ‘discipleship’ seems to happen naturally.

The fellowship is real because they feel connected with God and with one another.

No doubt some of their life comes from the thrill of starting something new or being around new people, but many churches seem to be able to continue in that vein for a long period of time if they are alive at their root level. “That’s great,” you might reply, “but what about older, larger churches that are losing this spiritual vitality? What would you do with the example of a second, larger church seeing a broad decline?” I am not advocating that we scrap all of the ministries in a large church. Those take a long time to set up, but perhaps a light could be shone on the benefits of the whole body going deeper with God.  

Life Comes from the Roots

Discipleship is at its core an attempt to invigorate not the superstructure of the church but the roots of it one cell at a time. It doesn’t care so much about when a youth group meets, but whether the youth are growing in their walk with God. It doesn’t seek as such to change the governance model of the leadership as to bring the leaders to a new level of faith and prayer. Let them decide what to do with the structure after they have that. They still might make poor decisions in leadership or planning but they will be on fire for God and so will be granted more chances. Meet up with one of the deacons from the second church and you might be impressed with their skill or planning, meet up with a deacon from the first and you would come away feeling that God is real.

Discipleship is at its core an attempt to invigorate not the superstructure of the church but the roots of it one cell at a time.

Relationships and personal growth would come before programs and that any new program proposed for the church would be asked, “How does this grow people in their walk with Christ?” I think one of the problems with older churches that have a number of programs is that the members may feel that all of that activity is enough for God. An excess of meetings and programs can hide the fact that the spiritual temperature of the congregation is slowly cooling. I’m not saying that a church has to get rid of all of its programs to be spiritual, but that it has to be much more intentional about discipleship than a small church plant where the focus is solely on our walk with God.

Discipleship does not solve all of the problems of a church since some problems are indeed structural. Godly people still can make bad decisions, follow a flawed vision or be poorly trained in their ministries. This is where better organization and philosophy become practical and life-giving. Even large churches can be filled with life. Numbers do not restrict God. The Spirit can just as easily move in 3,000 as He can in 30. Yet, all too often the organization, the building, and the tradition hide the fact that the roots are dying.

If you have ever had much contact with PRBI, you know that we are focused on discipleship. We teach classes, run sports teams, and have fun together but at the core of it is the concept of helping students grow in their walk with God through various sizes of small, intimate groups. I think it is fair to say that this has succeeded and this success has left a lasting impression on the students who come through here. Many of them go on to be leaders in local churches and one of the first things they want to do is implement the discipleship model in their congregation. It is our hope that this would bless their churches, especially in the area of spirituality.

By Jason Gayoway

Originally published in Fall 2015 issue of Trumpet magazine.

http://www.prbi.edu/The-Roots-Up-Church

How to Keep the Pastor You Love

I have always enjoyed meeting with pastors and listening to their stories. Since I served as a pastor for many years I had natural connections to these brave leaders and am privileged to hear their private thoughts. I don’t want to say that every one of those visits is a carbon copy of the others, but even someone as dense as me couldn’t help but notice the pattern that they fall into. First we talk about our lives, say about our kids or the housing market. Then we talk about the ministry. Pastors always have some cool element of the church that they want to tell you about or ask advice about.  Finally when the steam runs out of the ministry discussion we get to the elephant in the room – the conflict or stress that seems to be inherent in pastoral ministry.

The source of the stress is usually the expectations and behaviours of congregation members combined with the inability of pastors to deal with the resulting tension. People expect a lot out of their ministers and when they don’t get it their complaints can get quite personal. After all, the defective product is not a micro wave or a garden gnome but the pastor. Normally people avoid those who dislike and criticize them, but the minister is forced to not only continue in association with such people but to try to be their shepherd and guide. When this dynamic enters the church it is difficult for the minister to continue for long.

How bad is it?

An excellent book on this topic, Pastors at Even Greater Risk starts with a number of sobering statistics from the world of the minister:

• 80 percent believe that pastoral ministry affects their families negatively.

• 33 percent say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.

• 75 percent report they’ve had a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.

• 50 percent feel unable to meet the needs of the job.

• 90 percent feel they’re inadequately trained to cope with ministry demands.

• 40 percent report a serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month.[1]

The dangers ministers face is further reflected in the number of them that leave the ministry. According to the Barna Group, “the average pastoral career lasts only 14 years, and 1,500 pastors leave their assignments every month in the United States because of conflict, burn-out or moral failure.”[2]

The net effect of this exodus is significant. The fact that there does not seem to be a noticeable lack of pastors does not reflect the reality that rookies are replacing veterans. Perhaps more noticeable are the church splits and acrimony that sometimes accompany difficult pastoral departures.

I don't write here very often, but I want to dedicate the next few articles I do to addressing this problem. I like to think that if we were more aware of it we could make life a little easier for our ministers. It would be great if those stats above were reversed so that potential pastors could look forward to the awesome parts of the job.              

Personal Fulfillment

Indeed there are many cool things about being a minister. While the dropout rate  is high, the work is meaningful. A survey by Focus on the Family noted that 87% of ministers were ‘mostly or very fulfilled’ by their role as a pastor.[3] I think this is what I expected as a new minister. I got into the job to help people and make a difference in the world, and to some degree I was able to do that.

In what other profession do you get the chance to welcome babies into the world, lead people to the Lord, baptize them, disciple them, marry them and be there at the end of their lives? Sitting here writing about this I can think of many occasions at each of those stages where families welcomed me into their fold and gave me the awesome privilege of sharing those happy or sober moments. I tell pastoral students about the challenges of church politics and the high expectations of the congregation but I also tell them that if they can deal with those things there are great rewards in seeing the kingdom of God grow. 

I would encourage you to take a moment to pray for your pastoral team and to give them a smile or a kind word when you next meet. In closing we could remember Hebrews 13:17 which asks us to, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you."

By Jason Gayoway

Published in The Daily Herald Tribune December 10, 2015

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2015/12/10/how-to-keep-the-pastor-you-love

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[1] London, H. B.; Wiseman, Neil B. (2011-09-01). Pastors at Greater Risk (Kindle Locations 315-325). Gospel Light. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://www.thrivingpastor.org/images/pdf/2009PMSurvey.pdf accessed January 21, 2013.

[3] http://www.thrivingpastor.org/images/pdf/2009PMSurvey.pdf accessed January 21, 2013.

The Unnamed Woman

One of the nice things about teaching at a Bible school is the chance to preach the same sermons several times in a row at different churches. After three or four tries at the same message, even someone as obtuse as me can put together a fairly good talk. One of my stand-by messages comes from Luke 7. It is the story of an unnamed woman who bursts into a party at a Pharisee’s house and repents of her wicked ways. Over the years I have seen how the story can be viewed with the repenting woman, the cold Pharisee or the gracious God as the centre character. Today I would like to put God in the spotlight.

The curtain opens on an unnamed town visited by Jesus. A local religious official named Simon invites the Teacher over for supper to check out whether He is cosher or not. No doubt Simon had many interesting and challenging questions planned for Jesus, but he doesn’t get to ask any of them. His carefully planned night is dramatically interrupted by a weeping woman who bursts in and falls at the feet of Christ. She has no back story other than a snide thought bubble by Simon that she is a ‘sinner’. It seems fair from the context to infer that she is a local prostitute who heard Jesus speak earlier. Instead of apologizing for the intrusion or asking a question she simply falls at the feet of Jesus weeping. As an act of faith and repentance she wets his dirty feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair.

One might imagine that the Saviour would thank her for her kind act but shoo her away so he could get on with the ‘real’ work of convincing Simon that he was not a heretic. Instead this fallen woman who many would say deserves to be ignored becomes His focus and good example.

To explain his approval of the woman Jesus gives a parable just for Simon. The parable pictures two people who owe debts. One owes a lot and the other only owes a little. Despite what some people think, Pharisees like Simon were quite astute at such imagery and he no doubt recognized that the debts represented sin. So the one person lived a life uncommonly pure while the other was an uncommonly prolific sinner. However, the conclusion of the parable certainly ran contrary to Simon’s thinking. He might have imagined that the moneylender would have loved the person with the least debt more than the other. So the parable would have been about how God loves nice people more than sinners.

Instead Jesus asks which one of the debtors would love the lender more if he forgave all their debts. Obviously the one who owes more would be more grateful and have stronger feelings for the lender. The first time I read that I had a ‘God’s not who you think He is’ moment. It shows that God is more interested in how much we love Him than in how much we have sinned. Suddenly, the woman is seen as being the hero of the story not because she did a lot of good but precisely because her forgiven sins make her love God more than the guy who had little to forgive and feels he doesn’t owe much to the Lord.

It isn’t saying that God winks at sin but that He is interested in how we feel about Him. He wants His people to know and love Him fiercely rather than to be cold fish who spend their lives walking on eggshells. Jesus says as much when he sums up the many commandments of the Bible into two statements. The first of which was ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind’ rather than ‘Be super-careful never to do anything wrong because then I will hate you.’

Our sin does separate us from God and He takes that seriously. Yet if we repent of it and turn back to Him, God’s grace sort of works back into our past making that same sin into a kind of benefit to us. Like the unnamed woman our repented sins become a ‘useful experience’. We can have compassion for others struggling with those sins and see God not as a judge but as the way out.

One last thought. Simon was just that type of religious snob that all of us love to hate but Jesus didn’t give up on him. He took the time to give the Pharisee a whole parable in the hopes that he would come around. I don’t know this for sure, but I think Simon changed. After all, how did we know his judgemental thoughts about Jesus unless he himself was the one describing the evening? I like to picture him laughing at himself every time he got to that part of the story. Maybe there is hope not just for the overt sinners among us but for the ‘I’m-better-than-you’ Pharisees too.

By Jason Gayoway

Published in The Daily Herald Tribune February 25, 2015

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2015/02/19/the-unnamed-woman

The God of Revelation

When I was a kid, my pastor did a whole series on the book of Revelation.  There were charts and long explanation of the terrible surprises the end of the world held. I always thought of it as a very complex puzzle – figuring out which metaphor spoke of which country to come and how those countries would either conquer or be conquered. So I said to myself that, ‘It’s all going to work out in the end’ and forgot about it. Since the book was so laced with complex allusions and seemed to require a mastery of a diverse number of texts from others books, it seemed best left to the experts.

However, it turns out that the point of the book of Revelation is not to give us a roadmap to future events. It certainly does speak of the future, but primarily it tells us about the mind of God. Chapters 4, 5 and 7 place us in God’s presence where we see Him seated on a throne. Again and again the book of Revelation comes back to this place – a room or site where at the centre this throne of God sits. He is surrounded by powerful angels and magnificent creatures. From there He conducts the symphony of Revelation. The purpose of the book is to show us that ultimately God is in control of the world and that he will bring a victory over the pain and evil powers by changing earth literally into heaven.

From this room we learn about God – not so much that we learn a lot of complex theological concepts, but that we get to sit in the room with John, and if we quiet ourselves we can feel what he felt and experience some part of God. To understand the throne room is to understand something about God.

The first thing that strikes you about the throne room is that it is marked by power. John says that he hears thunder and sees lightning in 4:5. Anyone who has lived in the country knows that feeling of awe one gets from a thunderstorm. There is the ‘boom’ that comes from the skies and rolls out through the miles, making you glad you were not right under it. Something in that speaks of the greatness of the creator. Here John notes that the thunder was not overtop of the room but actually proceeded from the throne. That one detail alone would have made the apostle terrified to approach the seat of this Being.

The second thing that strikes you about the throne room is that it is marked by victory. Anyone who has suffered through an injustice can tell you that life on earth isn’t fair and that they hope there is some kind of reckoning. They might be powerless to right the wrong done them but hope that God is not. As we read through Revelation we come to its famous judgements made by the Lord against the world. They are not the random temper tantrums of a two year-old but the measured judgements of an objective God. These are followed by the great Day of Judgement at the end of the book.

No doubt these events are terrible and vast, yet they assure us that God is not casually indifferent to the acts of violence and various evils people commit or suffer from. The throne room is the place where justice is dealt out against these wrongs and those who suffer are remembered. When someone wrongs me I am tempted to hit back even harder but God is the perfect judge.

Finally, the throne room is characterized by worship. God isn’t the only inhabitant of the room. In fact it is filled with a myriad of angels, stately humans called ‘elders’ and four mysterious creatures. Perhaps spurred on by these sights of glory and power the inhabitants call out continuous praises to God. Even though I have read the book many times the worship of these creatures never fails to move me. They are so stark and beautiful. I will include one here as a closing to the article. May we come to the point where we can accept the awesome sights of the book and sing with them.

Revelation 5:11-14 (NASB95)
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands,
12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”
13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

By Jason Gayoway

God's Chosen People - Sermon

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God's Chosen People

What translation of the Bible is right for me?

Years ago when I was in high school, my friends and I were very interested in understanding the Bible. We wanted to read the most correct translation available but it seemed like all of them added words to the English version. I remember my friend Herb asking in frustration, “Why don’t they just translate the Bible literally into English so we can read the original?” One problem with Herb’s question is that he assumed that the Greek language was merely English encoded. In his mind all one needed to do was to find the English words that corresponded to the Greek words to translate a sentence. Yet anyone who picks up an ‘inter-linear’ version will see immediately that a word for word translation results in broken English at best.

The job of translators is not merely to decode the words but to give the sense of meaning that they were intended to give. To do that they must make two fundamental decisions: The first is to decide what the Greek actually meant to say and the second is to decide how to say that in English. The reason that there are so many translations is because there are so many possible results from these two choices.

In this article I will save the discussion about the meaning of the text for the scholars and skip to the decision translators have to make on how to phrase the meanings they arrived at. Should they translate it informally into everyday language by adding modern English idioms or try to keep the word order and phrasing of the original even if that results in an awkward-sounding translation? Maybe the right answer is to aim for somewhere in the middle. You can see that there is a kind of continuum between two poles. The ‘formal equivalent’ versions (like the NASB and ESV) attempt to recreate not only the original words but the structure of the sentences while the ‘functional equivalent’ translations (like the NLT and the NCV) seek to convey the meaning of the text in a way that modern readers could understand though the idioms and phrasing of the original are not always kept. I will describe these poles below.

Functional Equivalent Versions

Fee and Strauss in their book How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth try to explain the philosophy of functional equivalent versions by using a Spanish phrase.[1] The phrase “como se llama?” is literally, “how yourself call?” but is that the best translation? In English we would say “what is your name?” to capture the same meaning. Yet “what is your name?” does not use any of the original words so is that an unfaithful rendition? This illustration sticks with me because I would have to admit that no one learning Spanish would ever translate the phrase directly into English. The literal translation gives the phrase an awkward and somewhat formal sense that was never intended by the Spanish question. Someone using that phrase means it to be taken as a friendly handshake not an interrogation. The same principle applies to Bible translations. The original writers were using warm and understandable language most of the time.  

                 

Formal Equivalent

Assuming everything I said so far is accurate, it seems like a slam dunk for the functional translations. Yet there are some good reasons to include a formal translation on your study table. One benefit of formal equivalents is that they show us places in the text where a translational decision needs to be made. In other words, they point out instances where the passage could be translated in several different ways.

The NASB tells us in Eph 2:3b that we were, “by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” This strange phrase tends to make us stop and wonder about its nuances. Clearly we must reject the translation ‘angry children’ and prefer something like ‘children who deserved the wrath of God because they were sinful.’ The NLT gives, “By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger” but this seems to put the onus on God being angry rather than on our own sinfulness. The NLT may or may not be right in its decision, but it makes that decision for us. Also, functional translations like this make difficult passages easy to read quickly. As a result we tend not to pause and contemplate their meanings.  

For years I assumed that the translations that were harder to read were the better ones, kind of like how medicine must be good for you if it is terrible to taste. But now I don’t think that is necessarily true. The best translation for you depends on what you want to get out of it. Your best bet is to use a variety of them when you do a study of scripture. I can only hope Herb would have been satisfied with that answer.

By Jason Gayoway

Published in the Daily Herald Tribune September 3, 2015

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2015/09/03/what-translation-of-the-bible-is-right-for-me

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[1] Fee and Strauss, 32.

What Will Happen to Me When I Die?

You are at the last moments of your life on the earth.  An illness has you in its grips and time has run out.  You close your eyes for the last time, and you are suddenly aware of much more than your eyes could ever see.  The Bible talks about faith being to believe in something without seeing it. For those with much faith what they see next perhaps will not be a surprise, but really it is one thing to believe but another to see.  And you are seeing.

I should think the first thing you will be aware of is the presence of God, all around like the sun on a hot summer’s day - warm, and assuring.  Perhaps the next thing you will see is an angel.  One of their tasks is to transport us to our next destination.  The angel probably has known you a long time.  They fight battles in that strange spirit world that now is totally familiar and real to you.  But, all that is behind you.  Strangely, your interest in the working of angels and demons actually ends when you die.  Their battles, actions, or lack thereof really only affected you in ‘the flesh’. Now you are far behind the reach of the most powerful demon and in no need whatsoever of the help of the greatest archangel.  In fact you will soon help them. 

Even though your body is dead, another part of you called the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ in the Bible continues to exist, to feel and to think. We are made by God as a unity of body and soul. People ask me exactly what our souls are and I have trouble answering since the answer is both ‘us’ and ‘not us’ since we are incomplete without our bodies. Christianity teaches that the body is not evil but is an essential part of us. In fact the bodiless state you are in after death is only temporary.

This temporary state you are in creates a temporary afterlife. Moments after death you are transported either to Paradise or Hades. I know those sound like weird terms, but stay with me for a moment. They are places very much like eternal heaven and eternal hell yet neither of them is permanent, both being emptied out on the great day of judgement (more below). No believer has entered into the final heaven nor has any sinner entered the final hell.  For you though, I suppose none of that will matter that much.  Paradise is still the place of God and a place of friends and peace, very much like heaven as Hades is really very much like hell.  It is in that place you wait around for a while. Sadly, there are no good deeds you can do in Hades to somehow earn your favour with God nor can the prayers of your living friends alter your destiny. I guess the lesson is to decide now what you believe.

Those of you who read up on these sorts of things may feel that I left something out – the Judgement Day. Well that day is coming, but you have already had a kind of judgement happen to you though without all the fanfare. So what are you waiting for? This might sound corny but you are waiting for the end of the world. Human history will go on for however long it will until Jesus comes back.

After that you and everyone else who has ever lived (both good and bad) will be brought before the judgement seat of God. I believe at that time we are given some explanation as to why we are judged as we are. Then we will all be “resurrected” and given eternal bodies. These are physical bodies that will be able to withstand the rigours of eternity. I tell the students that they will look like the perfect version of themselves so I will look exactly as I am now!

For those of you who pictured heavenly eternity as being a bunch of disembodied spirits sitting on some kind of cloud with stringed musical devices the next part will be a surprise. The earth is cleansed/fixed and we are returned to it. That’s right - heaven is here on the planet. You will live here, walk around and experience time as you do now. Some believe that Jesus had the first eternal body, and He was able to do cool things like appear within a locked room. If indeed that is a characteristic of these bodies and not just of the Lord it would solve our greatest limitation. We would thereafter become explorers of the universe while we explore and come to know our Creator.

I don’t claim to be speaking for all branches of Christianity with the above paragraphs (nor are my own statements flawless!). But what I have written is a rough answer to the question of what happens to us after we die from a Christian Protestant perspective.   

By Jason Gayoway

Published in The Daily Herald Tribune November 28, 2013

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2013/11/28/what-will-happen-to-me-when-i-die