Home » Posts tagged 'evangelism' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: evangelism
God does NOT love everyone? A Hyper-Calvinist Error, part 1 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? That is the teaching of hyper-Calvinism. I recently put together a study entitled God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error where I examine that question. I will be summarizing the argument from that larger study in three blog posts. Please read the larger work using the link above for more information.
God Loves The Entire World,
So the Idea that God Does Not Love the Non-Elect is False
John 3:16 reads: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This passage plainly teaches that God loves everyone in the world, and the word “world” does not mean “the world of the elect” as hyper-Calvinists and many Calvinists allege. None of the 187 uses of the Greek word kosmos (“world”) in the New Testament use the word “world” of the “world of the elect.” This Calvinist idea is simply reading into Scripture what it does not say. 1 John 2:2 specifically distinguishes between the elect and the world while positing that Christ died for not the elect alone, but also for the whole world:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
John 3:16 is conclusive proof that God loves the entire world—including those who never believe and consequently perish in their sins.
Jesus Christ Loved Individual Non-Elect
And Eternally Lost Sinners: God Does Not Love Only the Elect
The Lord Jesus’ love for the unconverted rich young ruler proves that God’s love is not limited to the elect alone:
17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? 18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. 19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. 21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. 22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. 23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? 27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. (Mark 10:17-27)
The Son of God loved this unconverted hypocrite whom Scripture presents as a paradigm of large groups of lost men who trust in their riches. The Lord Jesus Christ clearly does not love the elect alone. His love for the rich young ruler is an instance of the eternal love manifested by the Father, Son, and Spirit towards the fallen and lost world spoken of in John 3:16.
Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error to learn more. The What is Truth? blog also has a variety of articles on Calvinism.
–TDR
Evangelistic Christian T-Shirts, Collared Shirts, Car Magnet
God the Father, Son, and Spirit are seeking for true worshippers (John 4:23); nobody can truly worship the Father through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit without being born again (John 3:3). Have you thought about whether you should have some evangelistic clothing that offers people the gospel, or whether your car can preach the gospel? In the Millennium even the bells on the horses will be holy to Jehovah (Zechariah 14:20). Why not make your mode of transportation clearly identified with the risen Christ now?
I created a few designs at Zazzle of evangelistic T-shirts, collared shirts, bumper stickers, and a car magnet with Bible verses that point people to faithsaves.net with its evangelistic material. (It is almost always best to click through a portal to save a bit extra whenever shopping on the Internet.)
The evangelistic shirt I am wearing in the pic below is one of those I designed. My wife and I were hiking in God’s creation to the top of a place called Bald Mountain in the Bay Area. (It is near the town of Ross. I feel very welcome there-it’s a nice place, for sure.) I usually wear this neon shirt when I am biking back and forth to work. That way I am not just visible on my bike, but everyone who goes by can have access to the gospel. Furthermore, when I am at work I basically need to have someone else initiate the conversation if I am going to talk about the gospel, but if coworkers see the shirt I am wearing when I bike in they know I am a Christian and also know how to find out more about the gospel without me having to say anything, as well as knowing that if they want to learn more about their Creator they have someone to ask about it. So that is very good.
By the way, we actually hiked to the planet Saturn on the same walk up Bald Mountain-here are pictures to prove it.
So now you know–a What is Truth? exclusive–now you know that all that stuff about Saturn being a gas planet and it being very far away from the sun and very cold is not true. You can actually hike to Saturn from Marin County near San Francisco, California, and the temperature on Saturn is remarkably temperate. Maybe the Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess Ellen White was actually right when she counted the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and said that “the inhabitants are a tall, majestic people.” I’m pretty tall, and at least my wife thinks I can be majestic. And here I was, hiking to the planet Saturn. Thanks, Mrs. White!
Fake news you can trust, eh?
This shirt comes in a variety of sizes and colors (you don’t need neon if you don’t want that color.) My wife Heather also has a nice shirt that says “Ye must be born again” and has the faithsaves.net website on it.
The evangelistic car magnets are also great. (We have had the bumper stickers for a while already.) It is a blessing that if we are in the parking lot at the grocery store, or are stuck in traffic, it means that the people next to us have a chance to come to know the true God and receive eternal life instead of spending eternity in hell. Why should a zillion companies advertise their products on their cars, but believers not evangelize with their cars?
Obviously, God has given us a great deal of liberty within His guidelines of modesty and gender distinction about what we should wear, as long as we do it for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). I would encourage you to consider using that liberty to confess Christ and offer the gospel with evangelistic clothing and evangelistic transportation in this desperately needy, hell-bound world.
–TDR
Faith and Resilience for Evangelism
The dictionary of Oxford Languages says that resilience is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” The American Psychological Association writes: “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Everyday Health says: “Resilience is the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events.” Psychology Today says: “Resilience is the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before.”
Evangelism Is Hard
You get it. True evangelism, where someone preaches a true gospel and doesn’t depend on gimmicks or cut corners, is difficult or hard. So much so, most professing Christians do not evangelize.
Right before the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, verse 18 says: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” At least because of the difficulty of evangelizing the lost, Jesus prefaced His command to do it by reminding His followers of how much authority He possessed. “I have all authority to tell you to do anything, especially this difficult thing.”
Evangelism is unlike anything else that you do or will do. It’s not like sales. It shouldn’t be. We’re not selling a product out there. If you are going to sell something, you want it to be something that people want. In general, you can’t earn a living trying to sell things people do not want.
People Don’t Want It
The message of salvation, the gospel, is greater than anything. You can’t find a better “product.” Nonetheless, people don’t want it. You can only offer it. And even that’s not easy, because people very often won’t even give the opportunity.
You want to give the gospel and people say, no. Then you give the gospel, and they say, no. Sometimes, you give the gospel, they say, yes, and then fall away very quickly. Extremely disappointing.
If you are a painter, you get done with your day, and you look at results. You finished room or rooms, maybe a whole house. You get satisfaction or fulfillment out of those results. Same with mowing lawns or a large range of various jobs, almost anything else. Sometimes doing evangelism can feel like digging ditches and filling them. It doesn’t seem like anything is happening.
People Don’t Like It
As a whole, people are not happy even to see you show up, if you are there to evangelize. They put signs on their doors to discourage you. It doesn’t make you more popular.
I went to every door in our neighborhood. I’ve noticed since then that very often people won’t even look at us. They don’t want eye contact. I understand. With my peripheral vision, I look for them to glance my way, so at that very moment, I can wave in a friendly manner. They know I’m doing it so they keep their heads turned away the entire time.
Everything I’ve written so far after the first paragraph undergirds the need for resilience. I have a goal to evangelize every single day if possible. I know how to do it. Good conversations are a norm. I preach the gospel many times. Even with that, a vast number of times I have little to nothing to show for it.
What Provides the Resilience
Yes, the question comes, why do it? Or, why keep doing it? Getting through the hardship of the difficulty in evangelism is the resilience. I want to keep doing it, to keep going back to the well.
The key for me is faith. I believe in what I’m doing. When I say nothing is better than the gospel, that means I believe in the gospel. If I went months with no one receiving Christ, I still believe in how great it is. Heaven rejoices over it. I believe that. My labor is not in vain. I believe that.
I still struggle, but my faith keeps me going. My faith looks up to God. It looks to His Word.
My mind goes to a couple of traditional hymns we sing. In faith I have a resting place. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
God’s Purpose to Redeem Men from All Nations
Jehovah, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, had a purpose to redeem sinners from all nations from eternity past, in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament. I have had the privilege of preaching the Missions Conference at West Coast Baptist Church in Oceanside, California this week. They are a church that seeks to glorify God and follow His Word, and I thank the Lord for their faithfulness to Him and their hospitality to us.
We (often, and properly) emphasize that the Great Commission teaches that the churches must go into all the world and make disciples of men from all nations. However, God has had a purpose to reach all peoples on the earth in every dispensation, both in those in the past and those that are upcoming. In the conference we looked at God’s purpose to reach all nations in those other dispensations that, at times, we do not think about as much, before we began to analyze the Great Commission for this period of time. So if you have never thought much about Jehovah’s heart to save sinners from all nations in all periods of time, and how that works out, perhaps the messages below from their missions conference may be a blessing. In their weekday services there are two preachers; the other preacher’s message from the Monday, Pastor David Sutton, certainly preached a great message well worth listening to, but it does not as directly relate to the theme of this blog post. After listening to these messages, be encouraged to participate in a greater way in the Great Commission yourself, and start doing more to contribute to God’s eternal purpose that “every creature” hear the gospel and that people from “all nations” give Him eternal praise.
Message #1: God’s Purpose to Redeem Sinners From All Nations–from Creation and into Israel’s History
Message #2: God’s Purpose to Redeem Sinners From All Nations–from Israel’s History through the New Testament Dispensation into the Future Tribulation, Millennium, and Eternal State:
Message #3: God’s Purpose to Redeem Sinners From All Nations Settled in Eternity Past:
–TDR
Men Seek Signs and Wisdom, But God Saves by the Foolishness of Preaching the Gospel
1 Corinthians 1:18-32: The Foolishness of Preaching
In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said God uses the foolishness of preaching to save. God saves people through the foolishness of preaching. Paul started out this section in verse 18 by saying that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.”
It’s not that the cross is foolishness or that preaching is foolishness. People think it is foolishness and Paul is saying, “That thing they think is foolishness; that’s what God uses to save.” God uses a means that does not make sense. Because people think the gospel is foolishness, they become offended from it.
Of all the offenses of the gospel, Paul gives at least two. (1) The Cross, and (2) Preaching. The cross is offensive. It is this way also in at least two ways. (1) Someone on a cross needs saving. Saving comes by a powerful means. (2) The cross would be to say that Jesus is the Savior or the Messiah. I’m not going to write about that in this post. Instead, preaching.
Rather Signs or Wisdom
Paul in essence asks, “Why use preaching when Jews seek after signs and Greeks after wisdom?” (1 Cor 1:22) He divides all men into these two different methodological categories. Jews and Greeks need signs and wisdom, not preaching. In my thirty-five plus years of ministry, I agree that every audience of ministry breaks down into those two general categories.
When you think of signs and wisdom, that might seem like two items people should like and want. They are two biblical words. In a very technical sense, a sign is a miracle. Almost exclusively, I think someone should view a miracle as a sign gift. I will get back to that.
Wisdom. Isn’t Proverbs about wisdom? We pray for wisdom. How could wisdom be bad? Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principle thing.”
Signs and Wisdom
Signs
Signs are something evident in a way of supernatural intervention. If there is a God, won’t He do obvious supernatural things? “If He doesn’t do those, why should I believe in Him? I want to see some signs. Wouldn’t He give me those if He really wanted me to believe in Him? That would be easy for Him, if He really did exist. If God did give me signs, I would believe. Since He doesn’t, then I won’t believe or I don’t need to believe.”
The absence of signs is not that God is not working. He works in thousands of different ways in every moment. They are all supernatural. We even can see how God is working in numbers of ways.
People would say they want more than God’s providential working. That isn’t enough. They want God to make it easy for them to believe by doing something amazing and astounding like what they read that Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles did. People desire direct supernatural divine intervention.
Churches feel the pressure to fake signs, because people want them. They aren’t signs, because they’re faking them, which redefines even what a sign is. Churches also conjure up experiences that give an impression that something supernatural is occurring. People can claim a sign from a lowered expectation of what a sign is. Even if it isn’t something supernatural, people want to feel something at church that might have them think the Holy Spirit is there. This is their evidence for God.
Wisdom
Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1 isn’t God’s wisdom, but human or man’s wisdom. This could be what people call “science” today. It is scientific proof or evidence. They need data or empirical evidence. This is very brainy arguments.
God is working in the world. It is good to talk about that. This is known as the providence of God. He upholds this world and all that is in it in many various ways. I love that.
A lot of evidence exists out there for everything that is in the Bible: archaeological, scientific, psychological, logical, and historical. People will say that’s what they need and that’s what makes sense to them. Even if they’re not saying that, it makes sense to believers that they need intellectual arguments.
Jews and Greeks in 1 Corinthians 1 represent all apparent seekers in God. If churches and their leaders are seeker sensitive, they would provide signs and wisdom. In a categorical way, that’s what they do. They use the preferred ways of their audience, rather than what God says to do. Apparent seekers are not the source for a method of salvation. God is.
You could give analysis as to the place of signs and wisdom as categorical approaches for ministry philosophy. Churches are rampant with both. Paul is saying, eliminate those as methods. Use the God-ordained method only.
God wants preaching as the method of accomplishing salvation. People are not saved any other way than preaching. Many reasons exist for this, some given in 1 Corinthians 1 and others in other biblical texts.
Keswick Theology: A Day in Keswick, Cumbria, the UK
Derwentwater, named after Lord Derwentwater, who was executed for treason, is a large lake in the English county of Cumbria, part of the Lake District National Park. On the northernmost tip of that lake is the small town of Keswick, a market town which name traces to the 13th century. In the 19th century it became popular for tourism and especially with the building of a trainline there from nearby Penrith.
Church of England in Keswick
In the late 1820s, William Wordsworth, the poet, encouraged John Marshall II, whose father and he earned a fortune in Leeds in the textile industry, to build a house near Keswick. Because Marshall saw a need, first he planned with the architect Anthony Salvin to erect a building for a Church of England parish there, named St. John’s the Evangelist, in the old English style. Frederic Myers, not to be confused with Frederick Meyer (early Keswick theology proponent), became the first vicar there in 1838, then in 1840 after the death of his first wife, married Susan, a daughter of John Marshall.
Shortly before Myers’s death, T. D. Hartford Battersby (biography with preface by H. C. G. Moule) came to join him, having read his theology (1841), which had persuaded him toward evangelicalism. Battersby, while attending and then graduating from Oxford, hungered for greater spirituality amidst confusion of the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement. In 1851 Battersby became second vicar of St. Johns and stayed there until 1883.
Something of great historical and theological significance occurred in Keswick on June 28, 1875 in a tent on the lawn of St. John’s. Under the leadership of Battersby, a prayer meeting began a convention there for a week, which spawned the Higher Life Movement in the United Kingdom, also called the Keswick Movement and the related Keswick Theology.
Trip to Keswick
The beautiful little town of Keswick makes a wonderful day trip of an hour and fifteen minutes by bus from Carlisle. In an entire day and early evening of pouring rain, my wife and I travelled with our umbrellas there Tuesday to look. We walked around the quaint town, first entering a shop of Lucy Pittaway, of whom I had never heard, but found she was three years running the most popular artist in the country. While my wife shopped, I began talking to the two ladies. Something like the following occurred:
Have you heard of the Keswick Movement?
They both nodded, no.
It started here. The Keswick Movement influenced now over 500 million people all over the world. It began here in the 19th century in this town. Do you know what it is?
They both nodded, no. One of them asked, “What is it?”
It is theological, I explained. It relates to the Bible. Do you know the Bible?
They both nodded, no.
Have you heard of the Old and New Testaments?
They both nodded, yes.
The New Testament starts with the first four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have you heard of those?
They both nodded, yes.
The gospels tell the story of Jesus. Part of what bothers people about the Bible is that Jesus did miracles. He is God. He healed everybody in Judea and Galilee. People want to know, if the Bible is true, why doesn’t that happen today? It’s not a bad question.
I explained the Keswick movement, second blessing theology, and moved into the gospel in a nutshell. They listened in complete rapt attention to everything I said there in that art shop.
Keswick Information Center
My wife and I walked down that cobble stone historical small downtown area and she went into a “bunny store.” Beatrix Potter was born in the lake district, so her books are all over there. We saw a whole section of Beatrix Potter products in the grocery store next to the bus stop. While she looked there, I went into a very old chapel in the middle of town that houses their Keswick information center. Tourists in Keswick today (and probably for centuries) mainly want to hike around the lake, which few to no one was doing in the pouring rain and ‘gale-force’ winds.
When I walked into the information center, it was one woman behind a desk. We greeted one other, she wondered why we were there. I asked if she heard of the Keswick movement. The conversation above happened again. She listened too with riveted attention. She was not religious, but she was so excited that she left from behind the desk to get a co-worker. I began explaining the same thing to him. This was seeming easy. Each time I brought in the gospel.
Walk to St. John’s
I went out in time for my wife to leave the bunny store and we kept walking up that main street. It went up a hill. The lake district is full of steep hills. Water runs down them and forms lakes. If you hike those hills, you get amazing views when it isn’t pouring down rain. My wife and I found St. John’s. I told her this is where the Keswick movement started. Even though the town heard and knew nothing about Keswick theology, I wanted to see if I found evidence for it in that old building.
Bridget and I opened a very old gate and took a path up some steps around the front of the edifice. Three men walked very quickly in front of us into the building in heavy rain gear. We took some pictures on the outside. We entered and walked around, while those three talked.
Two of the three men were trying to sell internet services to St. John’s. The other man was the present vicar, Charles, only the 13th since 1833. I had a long talk with him about Keswick theology, the Church of England, and the gospel, until an elderly man entered with whom he needed to meet. The Keswick Convention continues today, but doesn’t believe Keswick theology that still continues in various forms it introduced and propagated.
The theology from the first few decades of the Keswick Convention generated the Charismatic movement and a wide range of corruption in evangelicalism and through ecumenism. This includes many varieties of higher life and second blessing theology infiltrating fundamentalism and Baptists, including independent ones in the United States. The town itself and many surrounding communities today is mainly irreligious, non-religious, atheist, and in great need of the gospel.
Battersby
What engendered the spiritual hunger of Battersby in 1875? Why did he need more spiritually than what he already had?
Before conversion, everyone falls short of the glory of God. After justification by faith, no one does. Even of the church at Corinth, Paul wrote, “Ye come behind in no gift” (1 Corinthians 1:7). True believers have every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). Among saved people, there are not spiritual haves and spiritual have nots, only spiritual haves.
Believers do not need more Holy Spirit. The fulness of the Holy Spirit is not more Holy Spirit. Those who believe in Jesus Christ receive all the Holy Spirit. In fulness, the Holy Spirit has all of you, not your having more of Him.
The Church of England says that faith and repentance are necessary for the reception of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, which are generally necessary to salvation. It says infant sprinkling people regenerates and makes members of Christ and children of God. Someone depending on more than Christ for salvation will not receive the Holy Spirit, so he will always hunger for spirituality. Anglicans like Battersby, sprinkled as infants, even if later confirmed, are not saved. Conversion comes by faith alone through grace alone.
Paul wrote that we are complete in Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:10). Baptism and the eucharist add works to grace, thereby Christ is made of no effect unto them (Galatians 5:4). The Church of England says that the bread and the drink of the eucharist preserve a soul unto everlasting life.
Everyone who trusts in more than Jesus Christ will hunger for spirituality that is a basis for seeking for a second blessing. It is not a second blessing they need, but a first. It isn’t higher life, but life itself. More spiritual experiences, especially invented, conjured, or manipulated ones, will not and cannot replace true salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.
The Significance of Mediation in Reconciliation and Relationship, pt. 5
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
Evangelism itself is a form of mediation, what the Apostle Paul calls “the ministry of reconciliation.” An evangelist mediates between God and a lost soul toward salvation. The sin of a soul offends God, one estranged from Him, and the evangelist mediates with the gospel. When I write that, I do not mean that an evangelist is a mediator, like 1 Timothy 2:5 says that Jesus is. No man comes to the Father except by Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
Ambassadorship Mediation
2 Corinthians 5:18 gives the sense of mediation in evangelism, when it says God “reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” Then it follows, “and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation.” Jesus Christ reconciles to God as the Mediator. Still, however, God also gives believers the ministry of reconciliation. In the next verse, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,” but he has “committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” The mediation believers do is by “word.” We talk to people.
Verse 20 says that we are “ambassadors for Christ,” so this is like diplomacy. Ambassadors represent one nation to another nation. “We are ambassadors” is the Greek presbeuo, used only here and in Ephesians 6:20. Presbeuo is “to be a representative for someone” (BDAG). The way we participate in this mediation is through word, and the message of words that we speak as ambassadors Paul writes in verse 21:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
That one sentence encapsulates the gospel. It’s something believers can speak as diplomats for God with total authority from Him. The goal is to bring someone in the kingdom of this world or the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God.
God then wants unity between those in His kingdom. The New Testament shows that to be in a true church. It also reveals that churches should want unity with each other too. These realities I wrote about earlier in this series.
Mediating Harry and William as an Example
The Situation
True reconciliation necessitates God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each of the members of the Trinity. No true peace will come without the Lord. He provides the basis of peace, first getting right with God through Jesus Christ. Harry and William won’t have that without humble submission to God’s Word.
Much of the world knows about the rift now between the two brothers, sons of King Charles of England, William, the heir to throne, and Harry. Harry came out this weekend in anticipation of his published autobiography and said he wants his father and brother back. Is this to say, he wants reconciliation and mediation?
In accordance with true reconciliation, Harry cannot have it on his terms alone. He announced to the world that the relationship between him and his dad and brother did not have to be this way. On the other hand, Charles and William view the relationship a different way. If they were talking, I think they might say the same: “It didn’t have to be this way.” What would it take to restore a relationship, so it is no longer ‘this way’?
Mediating The Conflict
I use Harry and William as an example because they are a prominent conflicting relationship with an obvious barrier between them. Anyone can see both what the discord or dispute between them is and how reconciliation and mediation could occur.
Harry might not take take reconciliation or mediation. He receives his greatest income by telling family secrets. In mediation, if that could occur, I would confront both sides about keeping internal family disputes secret. They settle them in private only. If Harry chooses to leave his royal duties, he must give up his titles. Any money he makes must exclude public ties to the monarchy.
I would take Charles, William, and Harry through their grievances. Each would confess what I knew, what is proven, to be true. Both must repent, and then forgive. Each party must keep all listed ground rules for the future. As a result, both sides have their brother, their sons, and their father again.
Realities of Mediation
When I write about mediation, I am not writing about compromise, the wrong idea that two sides get together and come to some middle ground. It may seem like that, because the mediator listens to both sides. They both may have different versions of the same event. Both parties also might have their own set of grievances against the other party. When the mediator listens to one side and agrees with that side, the other side might view that as compromise, when it isn’t.
Sometimes what one side sees as a violation the mediator says is Christian liberty. He may identify it as a doubtful disputation. One side may think something is what it thinks it is, but a mediator says, “No, it isn’t.” Coming to some of those types of decisions is why two sides get a mediator. In general, a party does not want to see it a different way than what he or it sees it. He very often won’t. If he agrees to a mediator, he might have to do that. This is mediation.
A mediator very often sees what two conflicting parties do not or cannot see. He can point out inconsistencies on either side. If he does his job, he wants true, legitimate reconciliation between the parties, that is, biblical peace.
If a party only wants to hear its side, what some may portray as its echo chamber, it can choose to do that. It is choosing then not to reconcile. Mediation reveals or tests the desire for reconciliation. It provides that last plank or marker toward reconciliation. It follows the model of the Lord Jesus Christ and the example of the apostles.
500,000+ Page Views for Faithsaves.net!
I am thankful that the Faithsaves.net website recently passed 500,000 page views. I suspect that is a larger number than the number of people who live in many of the towns and cities that blog readers here live in. I am thankful that the website continues to impact people with God’s glorious truth. Lord willing, I look forward to 1 million views as the next significant milestone.
As discussed on the page here, one can get bumper stickers, car magnets, T-shirts, and shirts with collars promoting the gospel and faithsaves.net. We have appreciated the opportunity for our vehicle to be an instrument that gives people the opportunity to spread the truth. Many businesses have information all over their company vehicles; why should not those who are about their Father’s business do the same? (Of course, if your church already has decals or other information they recommend, by all means consider them.) (If you buy something on the link above–or practically anywhere else on the Internet–you can save by doing what this article says–click through a portal first, or, for Amazon, do this first.)
–TDR
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 5
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
Anyone who might want to start a church in the San Francisco Bay Area likely understands two difficult realities, one, it’s hostile to Christianity, and, two, it’s very expensive to live there. My wife and I went there because of the former. We trusted God with the latter.
Our Dodge Omni did not make it through the first year. We bought a used Subaru Wagon with a three year loan. It was our last car loan. We drove it until it dropped by which time we had saved for another used car. We also moved to a different apartment that was fifty dollars cheaper a month.
In my twenties in the 1980s, no one could force you to buy health insurance. I was taught by wise men to get it, even if we “didn’t need it.” This paid off our first year. Jumping into the car again and again in door-to-door evangelism resulted in surgery for a pilonidal cyst surgery. It’s minor but very expensive without health insurance.
How did the church grow? No one knows who will listen to preaching and who will not. No one knows who will respond well. An important part of starting a church is pressing through the difficulty and rejection.
What helped me persevere were two factors. One, I experienced hardships already. I carried a heavy load through college and grad school that was tough. I majored in biblical languages. Greek and Hebrew were not easy. Our family lived in difficult conditions, my dad working two jobs and taking a full load of classes, driving junk cars and living in harsh circumstances. I played competitive sports and lost a lot of games in college. Our teams won in high school. I played quarterback and we won. Our basketball team won. In college, we lost and lost and lost at every sport.
In football, you don’t just lose, but you get beat up too, especially playing my position. It was tough getting in and staying in shape with many other responsibilities. I could never quit. It was drilled into me by my father never to give up. It wasn’t winning that got me through. We had very few wins in those four years. As our coach liked to say, we were small, but slow.
Two, the Bible gives great encouragement. Most of you reading probably know this one, but 1 Corinthians 15:58 helped.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in. I thought of it all the time.
What a great verse from the Apostle Paul in God’s Word. When things are not going well, I thought, as can you, my labor was not in vain in the Lord. Even if I got no or negative results, I abounded. God said so.
I hit every door in Hercules, around 20,000 people, 1 1/2 times in the first year. We never had a single service with twenty or more that first year. This occurred to someone who thought he would have 100 in his first service. I had already lost a lot, been literally beaten up, had my bell rung, as we called it then. It was hard.
In the first few months Bridget and I had a few hundred dollars to our name. I lived in an urban area for the first time. I was not a city boy. Someone called our church number, said he was a pastor stranded without gas on a long trip. Out of compassion, I gave him half him a hundred dollars. This might seem crazy, but it really was how naive I was to this kind of situation. It wasn’t the last time someone fooled me in a similar way.
We had some great stories though. God saved some and the church did grow by His grace. God used my wife and I to start one of the Lord’s churches.
In December of that first year, my wife got me an unusual Christmas present. We had no television. She knew I liked watching bowl football games at the end of December and early January. She would rent a television from rent-a-center. Up to that point, I had never heard of rent-a-center. Fundamentalists would preach against television and I understand, but I evangelized the man at the counter. I invited him to church.
The story was that this newly married couple wanted a church, but he didn’t want her Catholic Church. They came on a Sunday night, and besides my wife, those two were it. Four people. They were the Brants, Dan and Van, the latter Vietnamese. On Sunday night, I did a series through Ecclesiastes, which I saw and still see as also evangelistic. It did impact the couple. They kept coming back.
Within a few weeks, I went to visit them to preach the gospel. After preaching the entire message, I asked if they wanted to believe in Jesus Christ, to follow Him. She was ready, so she stood up on her own, and moved to the chair right next to mine. She received the Lord. We baptized her in her swimming pool in their back yard. Van Brant, Mrs. Brant, we now call her, stayed with us from that time henceforth. She is still a faithful member of Bethel Baptist Church, gloriously saved.
To Be Continued
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 4
Bridget and I arrived in San Francisco in late August, joining Calvary Baptist Church there. We found our first apartment in the Marlesta apartments in Pinole. She succeeded at finding a job as a teller at Mechanics Bank. I found one at the Big Five sporting goods. We rented the multipurpose room at Ohlone Elementary School in Hercules. We printed brochures and hired someone to paint two street signs. Our first service we set for Sunday, October 18, 1987. We copied flyers as an invitation for that date.
My wife and I moved into our first apartment. Both of us started working about thirty hours a week. Our missions support would cover only part of the immediate expenses of the new church. I knocked on the first door next to Ohlone School and started covering the town of Hercules with the gospel. For the first month and a half, I invited everyone to our first service.
After arrival, I heard people use the terminology, North Bay. I thought Hercules was North Bay. Early I wanted a name that included a larger geography, so I chose “North Bay Baptist Church.” No one told me, “Hercules isn’t North Bay.” It wasn’t. Hercules is East Bay. Despite that, we still used that name for the first year and a half of our church. We designed a logo with the name.
At least 100 people promised to come for our first service. I was too ignorant not to know how unlikely that was. I expected it. Bridget’s uncle and aunt, who lived down in Santa Cruz, would drive up. We had one family from the sending church who lived in Hercules. They would come. Until that first service on October 18, Bridget and I attended all the services at Calvary Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Every late Saturday night, I set out two wooden portable handmade signs in front of the Ohlone school. I also did this for the very first service. One was larger that sat near the street pointing toward the parking lot. The other sat closer to the multipurpose room, visible from the parking lot, pointing toward the multipurpose room. It was a sandwich board style with the same image on both sides, hinged and propped up against each other.
My wife and I were paying for the multipurpose room in a public elementary school by the hour on Sunday. We rented it for five hours in the morning and two hours at night. This time allowed for us to set up and take down every week. The school had a piano and a podium. We brought a table in front of the podium.
I hung a banner behind the podium that said, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,” which was the scriptural theme from the beginning of our church. In the back we had a table with literature and offering plates. All the tables had table cloths. The front table had some kind of flower arrangement on it. This was a ritual every Sunday.
The philosophy I held for the building was that God built the church through His Word. Such a building, good or average, would not stop someone with a true motive from visiting or coming. Even though 100 people promised to come the first Sunday, 7 came.
As you read this, having 7 new people come to church might sound good today. I really did think they would all come. One family of four, the one that lived in Hercules from the sending church, came the first Sunday. We had several others, family and people traveling from other churches, but only the seven invited who said they would come our first Sunday.
What would happen next? I folllowed up on the seven and the 93 or so others who said they would come, but didn’t. From that point, I could start telling the story of those who came, those who stayed a little while, and those who were with us for years. Some from that first year are still in the church. No one from that first Sunday stayed. A couple kept coming off and on that first year, then they were done. The work had begun though.
That first Sunday I started preaching through John and my first sermon was in John 1:1. I continued that series on Sunday mornings until I was done. Every sermon was typed with a manual typewriter on regular typing paper.
I believed preaching was most important to the founding, strength, and continuation of our church. Long term, I believed it was most important in every way. Jesus told Peter, Feed my sheep. I didn’t have many sheep yet, but I knew this church would grow from evangelism, yes, but also from exposition of scripture.
People had personal computers in 1987. I knew one person with a computer at that time. It wasn’t until later that first year that I bought a used IBM Selectric with a removeable ball. The first half of that first year I typed a bulletin every week on a manual typewriter. All my flyers were literally cut and paste. That’s where the terminology, cut and paste, came from. Each letter was cut from a sheet of stylish letters and then pasted. We really have it good today when it comes to laying out printed materials.
My wife and I were working, so we had regular work hours at the bank and the sporting goods store. We lived in an second floor single bedroom apartment in Pinole. We bought a used bed, used mattress, used sofa, used kitchen table, used chairs, and a used lamp. I think all our furniture cost us two or three hundred dollars total. When I wasn’t at work, I jumped into the Dodge Omni and went door to door. Sometimes my wife came with me. We started covering every house and apartment in Hercules, moving out concentrically from the building where we met.
During the first year, up the street from Ohlone School I rang a doorbell with my wife and preached the entire gospel to a man, I remember, named Brian. I know his last name too, even though this was the last time I ever talked to him. Why? He prayed a prayer. He made a profession of faith. My wife was with me and afterwards, I asked her, “Do you think he really got saved?” She said, “No.” We argued a little bit, but the reason I still remember it is because Brian didn’t really receive Christ.
I had evangelized for years, since I was a teenager. I preached to hundreds of people. Nothing compared to what I was doing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I felt like I knew little to nothing about what I needed to do. I began studying evangelism, reading my Bible, studying books, and listening to recordings. How would a church start without anyone hearing the gospel and receiving Christ? That was why we came to California.
To Be Continued
Recent Comments