Soul-Winning Attire

The clip of an article you see below is from the July 4, 1901 issue of the God’s Revivalist which I posted below. I found this article interesting so I thought I would blow it up to make it easier for you to read. 

God’s Revivalist July 4, 1901 page 1

Below is the first page of the July 4, 1901 issue of the God’s Revivalist. Awhile back I purchased several issues of the God’s Revivalist from the early 1900’s (thanks Robert!) and I’m going to scan some of these and hopefully post them here on my blog. I’ll post the rest of this issue in the near future.

Blog Refresh

As you can tell I’ve updated my site – hope you enjoy.

Interesting question

Are You a Sink or a Faucet Christian?

There are two kinds of Christians.

“Sink Christians” view salvation like they would a sink. The water of salvation flows into the sink so that Christians can soak up all the benefits: eternal life, assurance in the present, strength in times of trial. Those who adopt this mindset concentrate solely on what the Bible says God has done and will do for them.

“Faucet Christians” view salvation differently. They look at the world as the sink and themselves as the faucet. The blessings of salvation flow to them in order to flow through them out to the wider world. They rightly see that the Bible describes salvation as something that God not only does for them, but also through them.

From: Kingdom People

Interesting

Obama Less Popular Than Bush After First Month in Office

This is absolutely gross!

These photos are brought to you courtesy of Foxnews and my wife who felt they were important enough to share with me! :-) Click here if seeing these 5 disgusting photos were not enough and you need to see more. (There are some seriously strange people in this world...but they all need Jesus!)

A Reminder of What Lent Is All About

Allen Yeh over at The Scriptorium has a great post today which deals with what Lent is all about, and six fallacies regarding Lent. Here's an excerpt:

Today is Ash Wednesday, 2009, and I thought it would be good to reflect a bit on the meaning of Lent.

It seems to me that while Easter has escaped a lot of the ravages of Christmas (yes there are Easter eggs and bunny rabbits, just as there are Santa and reindeer during Christmastime, but Easter has largely remained unscathed from consumerism and greed), it seems that Lent has suffered more than Advent.

Advent is usually quite beautiful as we light candles and prepare our hearts in anticipation of the birth of the Messiah. Lent, however, becomes more of an exercise in giving up things (what we can do) and less in looking forward to the death and resurrection of Christ (what Jesus can do). In true Dantean fashion, let me break this down into six fallacies (one less than a number of perfection, which symbolizes shortcoming):

Click here to continue reading

February 24, 1791

John Wesley's last letter was written to William Wilberforce. He wrote it on February 24, 1791. He died eight days later. For those who might be unaware, William Wilberforce was instrumental in ending the slave trade in England and its colonies.

Dear Sir:

Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum,(1) I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be fore you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor African, I was particularly struck by that circumstance that a man who has a black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it being a "law" in our colonies that the oath of a black against a white goes for nothing. What villainy is this?

That he who has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of, dear sir,

Your affectionate servant,
John Wesley

(1)"Athanasius contra mundum" means Athanasius against the world. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373 AD) was a early church father who fought against Arianism (an early Church heresy that taught Jesus was a subservient and created being).


This post was copied from Wesleyan Arminian

Too bad he's not our President...

I'm speaking of Mike Huckabee of course...

In this video Huckabee talks to Sean Hannity about FDR and the Great Depression.

There's a crisis all right...

As you will see in the video below President Obama is making sure that everyone knows that there is a "crisis" and he is using fear to try to accomplish his agenda. However, there is a much bigger crisis in our country right now - one that is far bigger than our economic situation. Click here and read this story and you will see just what the crisis is - all I can say is God help us and God have mercy!!

Good Question

Has Our Passion For Revival Waned?

Throughout Church History there have been those who passionately pursued revival. In the English speaking culture we can think of people such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, or Charles Spurgeon. Recently I was reading a biography of Spurgeon in which the author spoke of the great prayer revivals of 1858-1859 that begin in New York City with noon day prayers and these prayer meetings soon covered most of the Eastern United States from New York all the way south to Charleston, South Carolina. The prayer meeting revivals spread from the United States back to Europe and soon impacted the famous Metropolitan Tabernacle in London (then the largest church in the world) pastored by Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon was truly blessed by what he saw as crowds flooded not just Metropolitan Church but scores of churches in England.

The revival of 1858-59 came historically before the tragic American Civil War that would take the lives of millions. It seems that the revival came at just the right time, to prepare millions for eternity.


None of knows the future. We can try to read the signs but in the end only God knows the future. But I believe that our hunger should not cease for revival and yet the question that is on my mind these days is this: Is the passion for revival starting to wane?

To read the whole post click here.

It was just here I promise! :-)

626 Words per Minute

That's how fast our "great" leaders in Washington would have had to read in order for them to actually read the 1,073 page stimulus bill that they're trying to pass.

I haven't read that fast since I was in College! :)

Quote of the Day

"Paul never glamorized the gospel! It is not success, but sacrifice! It's not a glamorous gospel, but a bloody gospel, a gory gospel, and a sacrificial gospel! 5 minutes inside eternity and we will wish that we had sacrificed more!!! Wept more, bled more, grieved more, loved more, prayed more, given more!!!" - Leonard Ravenhill

Imagine if Bush would have tried this...

President Obama preselected reporters to ask questions at his primetime press briefing...

It makes me wonder if he told them what questions to ask too...

The Cross Is Not Cool

I just read this article over at Arminian Today which expresses what I've been trying to get across on my blog. Only I think he did a better job. Click here to read it.

To hopefully clarify a few things

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not a big fan of the seeker sensitive movement (or whatever it's called these days), because I think that at the core they have things backwards. Their focus is to make everything as appealing as possible to cause people to want to come to church. They appeal to the "felt needs" of the world to compel them to come. I'm sure that most pastors and churches who do this have a right motive-I just feel that it's a wrong method and a dangerous one. I believe that church services should be focused on worshiping God and we should make sure that the things we do in them are pleasing to God, not to the sinful world. I then believe that the church as a body of believers is to go out from the church services and witness to the world. This I believe is the Biblical method of church growth (although I don't claim to have reached this point yet with my church).

Anyways, this doesn't mean that there are not some things we do as a church that needs to go or that we can't improve on. I do believe that visitors ought to be made to feel as welcome and as comfortable as possible in our services (without compromising the Truth of course). There are some things we do in our churches services that are mere tradition that at times we need rethink and maybe get rid of. For instance, when I was a kid our church had people come to the front on their birthdays and "pay" for a pencil to celebrate their birthday (they would put a a little piggy bank that looked like a church and the person who was celebrating their birthday was expected to put some money in the bank and they were then given a pencil - yipee!) This definitely had to go!

I've also been to churches where they embarrass the snot out of any new people who come by making them stand, testify, introduce themselves, etc.

As the video demonstrates below, there might be a few other things we (I) could improve upon as well...I don't want to go too far down this road, but there just might be some lessons we (I) could learn from this video. (Hopefully this will make my marketing and somewhat seeker sensitive friends happy) ;-) LOL

My position on the Seeker Sensitive movement

If you've read my blog for very long at all you know that I'm not all that concerned with being "relevant" or "seeker sensitive" at least in the way that most churches and pastor's are today. That being said I am very passionate about outreach and seeing new people come to know Christ and attend church. My problem with being "relevant" is that most churches take it to the extreme and the Gospel is sacrificed on the altar of church growth (I'm afraid that many pastors are worshiping the god of church growth!). I am less concerned about my church being appealing to the sinner so that sinners will come and I am more concerned about my church's services being pleasing to God as we worship Him (this is what our gathering as believers should be all about). I think that church (as a service) is more for the Christian than the sinner. This doesn't mean that the sinner is not welcomed, encouraged to attend, etc. This doesn't mean that I don't preach salvation messages on Sundays - in fact I probably preach more on this than anything else. The fact of the matter is that currently most of the people that attend my church on Sunday's are not Christians. However, when we gather on Sunday's our focus should be on worshiping the Lord in the beauty of holiness - not in shaping the whole service around the felt needs of sinful man.

All that being said, I believe the Biblical evangelism occurs when the church as a body goes out to the world and evangelizes the lost. Most churches expect the world to come to them and I think we've got it all backwards. We've adopted the mentality that we can sit within our four walls and wait for the world to come to us. What has happened is that some churches and pastors, in their desire to reach the world (a good and proper desire), has come at evangelism with the wrong mindset. They think they've got to do whatever it takes to appeal to the sinner to entice them to come. So they become seeker sensitive-purpose driven and it works! The people do come (at least for awhile). Seriously, if your goal is just to grow a church it's not that hard. Get a good rock band, wear grungy clothes, play great videos, preach sex sermons, and be "cool" and your church will grow! I realize that I'm probably oversimplifying it a little bit, but not too much...

For many churches it has become all about marketing. I think that every church should attempt to look first class. I think their handouts, signs, ads, website, etc. should all be as good as possible. I appreciate guys like Allan Mowery and Jon Plank who produce first class design. I'll never be up to their caliber but one of my hobbies is website and graphic design. I have done my best to have a decent looking website for my church and I design all of our materials we handout so that we have something (hopefully!) nice to give to people. The first major project I undertook as the pastor of my church was to buy a nice lighted sign so that we could get rid of the wooden one with peeling paint that we had out in front of our church. We raised nearly $6,000 in order to purchase the sign and I believe it was a good investment. So, I believe that marketing your church well is something that you should do.

However, I'm afraid that many churches and pastors have moved away from real evangelism and going out and reaching the lost, and instead have turned to slick marketing and seeker sensitive methods to appeal to the world and compel them to come in to the church services. On the surface this may seem great. After all, don't we want people to come to church so that the church will be full? Of course. I wish my church was packed every Sunday. However, when the Gospel is sacrificed and truth is not preached there is something desperately wrong! When your church services are built around the felt needs of sinful man it will turn into the debacle that most modern church services are! Preachers are called to preach the truth without fear or favor of men! I don't care one bit about being seeker sensitive if it means that the Truth is not preached. The Truth must be preached even if it offends! There are many times when I feel that God wants me to preach on certain things and it's not always easy when I know there are people in my congregation who are guilty of those sins. However, I will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment and I don't want to stand guilty before God for failing to preach the Truth - I don't want anyone to be able to accuse me of not telling them the truth about their sins. Right now it may not always make me popular, but in the end it will be right!

I want to recommend a great book that you may have already read but we all ought to read over again every once in a while - "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" by Jim Cymbala. Especially chapter 8 - "The Lure of Marketing." In chapter 8 Cymbala talks about the new holy trinity of the church - the A-B-C's: Attendance, Buildings, and Cash.

In this chapter Cymbala writes,

Nowhere in the epistles do we find Paul saying, "I hear your attendance was down last quarter - what's the problem? What are you going to do about it?"

This leads me to say that no church, including the one I pastor, should be measured by its attendance. Although I am thankful for the crowds of people who come to the Brooklyn Tabernacle every week, that is not the sign of God's grace.

Cymbala continues to point out that what did matter to the book-of-Acts church was things like speaking the Word with boldness and being boldly confrontational trusting the Spirit to produce conviction necessary for conversion. He points out Peter's preaching on the Day of Pentecost where he said, "You, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross." (Acts 2:23)) Cymbala writes, "This was the last thing the crowd wanted to hear. If David Letterman had a Top Ten list of things not to say to a Jewish audience, number one would be "Guess what - with your own hands you just killed the Messiah, the one Israel has been expecting for centuries."

Cymbala continues, "But Peter's boldness did not drive the people away. Instead, it stabbed their consciences. By the end of the day a huge group had repented of their sin and been converted." He points out several other examples of things which the Apostles said and preached which I would term as being "non seeker-sensitive."

Again I quote Cymbala:

The apostles realized that without a bold, aggressive attitude in proclaiming God's Word, they would not build the church Jesus intended. Any church in any city of the world must come to the same conclusion.

The apostles weren't trying to finesse people. Their communication was not supposed to be "cool" or soothing. They aimed for a piercing of the heart, for conviction of sin. They had not the faintest intention of asking, "What do people want to hear? How can we draw more people to church on Sunday? That was the last thing in their minds. Such an approach would have been foreign to the whole New Testament.

Instead of trying to bring men and women to Christ in the biblical way, we are consumed with the unbiblical concept of "church growth." The Bible does not say we should aim at numbers but rather urges us faithfully to proclaim God's message in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. This will build God's church God's way.

There is much more in this great chapter in this great book. So, I encourage you to go buy it if you don't already have it. If you do, maybe you should reread it.

Let me summarize this long post by saying that it is my desire to reach a lost and dying world! I want to see the Kingdom of God built and see men and women, boy and girls, come to know Christ. For this to happen it will take sound Biblical preaching: preaching on sin, righteousness and the judgment. Preaching that has no fear or favor of men and that will boldly proclaim, "Thus sayeth the Lord!" Christ deserves the reward of His suffering!

I close this loooong post with one more quote from "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire":

Spiritual "construction" that uses wood, hay, and straw comes easy - little work, little seeking, no travail, no birthing. You just slap it up and it will look adequate - for a while. But if you want to build something that will endure on Judgment Day, the work is much more costly.

On that day it won't matter what your fellow Christians thought of you. It won't matter what the marketing experts advised. You and I will stand before the One whose eyes are "like fire." We won't soften Him up by telling Him how brilliant our strategy was. We will face His searing gaze.

He will only ask whether we were boldly faithful to His Word.

The State of the Church today

He's famous (and I know him) ;-)

Darrell Lee Stetler pastors in Oklahoma City and is doing a tremendous job at his church. The video below is part of this news story about how some churches in Oklahoma are using the Financial Peace University to help offer peace of mind in this time of economic crisis. As you will see in this video Darrell talks about the food bank they have at their church. Darrell's a good friend and part of the Youth board in our conference along with myself, Doug Eads, and R.G. Hutchenson.

Courtesy of Google Earth

This picture of my church is provided courtesy of Google Earth Street View (kind-of scary...)

Duct Tape Alert!

This is wrong on so many levels it's unbelievable. When I think of this "pastor's" attitude and then think of some of the great pastors I know - men like Barry Arnold, John Ingram, Jacob Martin, Mark Mowery and many others. Some of my readers may not know who these men are because they're not big "cool" nationally known individuals, but they are real pastors who love their people! They're not simply goat herders trying to fill seats on Sunday's but they are men who rejoice when their people rejoice and cry when their people cry. Their hearts bled for their people and they give everything they've got for the purpose of seeing souls won to Christ. I as a young pastor would much rather be identified with these men than to be part of the "in" group of pastor's and be "cool" and "relevant." I may not be the Pastor of a church of thousands, but God has called me to the church I am at and I love my people!