Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Reuters]

Thieves crept into a German church during a service, stole a 300-year-old Bible worth up to 5,000 euros ($7,366) and emptied a collection box, police in Berlin said on Wednesday. After about 150 congregants at the Martin Luther Church in Berlin’s working-class Neukoelln district finished a 90-minute service on Sunday, they found burglars had broken into the church office and made off with the Bible and money donated to buy food for the poor.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I would be excited if people stole some Bibles from church as long as they read it.  My experience is people leave more Bibles at church than take them home.  Check out your lost and found.

What do you think?

[Christian Post]

When life coach and televangelist Paula White went into her marriage 18 years ago, she thought she’d end her life with her husband, Randy. Divorce was not anything she ever wanted to happen, she recently said. Now separated from Randy and continuing her own ministry, White has found herself in the midst of a wide debate as more evangelicals show acceptance of divorce.

“The fact is as many have been critical or judgmental [about the divorce] … I’ve also found thousands that have reached out to me in a way that maybe they never did,” said White in a live interview Monday with CNN’s Larry King.

The famed pentecostal preacher’s divorce announcement in August compounded with the divorce case of another power couple – televangelist Juanita Bynum and Bishop Thomas Weeks III – that same week fueled discussions on whether Scripture allows the separation of marriage partners as both couples received support.

“I think conservative Christians are becoming more liberalized in the sense of, I guess, making more room for the acceptance of divorce and remarriage,” said Mark Galli, Christianity Today magazine’s managing editor, according to Religion News Service. “You’ll see a lot of churches that plunge right in and have divorce ministries. … Marriage is a really difficult thing in our culture right now.”

Meanwhile, theological conservative John Piper called the widening grounds of legitimate divorce “tragic.”

Both Paula White and Bynum continue to have a strong following even after their highly public divorces. White has out a new book, You’re All That!, and Bynum said she believes her experience may broaden her ability to reach people.

Read about it here.

[From me]

How can we as believers talk about family values when ministry and career seem to be valued more than the family?  I agree with John Piper.  This is tragic.  Marriage isn’t a high school steady that you break up with and move on.  God can and does use people who have experienced divorce.  But it is not His ideal.  Divorce happens to fine people and many never wanted it. But shouldn’t people regardless if they are in ministry or not be doing whatever it takes to save their family instead of making statements like it has broadened my ministry?

Our priorities should be God, family, and ministry in that order.  But too often people confuse ministry with their personal relationship with God. It is a sad day for God’s Church when the divorce rate among believers is the same as those outside the faith.

What do you think?

Two years ago last summer, I received a call from a friend of mine asking me to send him my resume. I didn’t think much about it but a few weeks later I received a call from the pastor search committee at a church in Charlotte, NC. It was a very impressive business executive and she asked me to send her a DVD of me speaking. I sent the DVD never expecting to hear back from them. Why? Because I could tell the church was very traditional and nothing about me really is. My DVD was a message of me speaking using lots of multi-media and I was wearing Khaki’s and a polo shirt. It was me. Within three days this search committee called and wanted to talk with me further. Honestly, I really couldn’t understand why. In fact, I asked them what they saw in me. Two of the members said they realized that they needed to make some changes in their church in order to reach the younger generation.

They set up a meeting between us for early September and then the unexpected happened-Hurricane Katrina! I was weary and broke from living through three hurricanes in 13 months, as well walking through a difficult situation at the church I was serving. Several people advised me to go and just talk to the committee at DMBC, and so I did. I had a list of 19 changes that I believed were necessary in order for me to consider relocating to Charlotte. To my surprise the committee liked all of my ideas and believed that this is what their church needed.  Their next step was inviting my wife Cassandra to come and visit. I’ll never forget Cassandra crying while we ate dinner at Bravo, a restaurant at a new mall near Huntersville. This was because she just didn’t see me” fitting” the mold of the church. But, the next night she fell in love with the committee members and realized that they needed us and how God could use us there. But I’ll never forget what Cassandra said to them.

“You say you want change, but do you really want it?” “Because Kevin will bring change and what you saw on the DVD is him.”

Then she added, “I guess that’s really not a fair question to ask you because only I really know what that looks like.”

My wife is a wise, perceptive woman. She knew this would be a risk and a true step of faith for us to walk through that door!

We agreed to accept God’s call and my 1^st three messages were about the necessity to change-the church and ourselves. However, my honeymoon didn’t last very long. Change is very hard unless you are the one implementing the change. Let me say that 99.9% of the people at DMBC have been nothing but loving and gracious. But there were a lot of issues that were out of my control. Yet, I’m the leader so the buck stops with me. John Maxwell says:

“If your are leading and no one is following, you are just taking a walk.”

I won’t go into all of the details, but 4 months ago I realized something else needed to change. My mom was telling me about a message she recently heard from Pastor Rick Warren (Yeah, my parents are that cool) in which he says when churches split it is usually only 7 people who are contributing to it. It became more apparent that this transition I was making was hurtful to many people. Some good people left the church for various reasons-some because of my leadership and some because the area around the church is changing. I didn’t want anything eventually coming to a vote because even if I “won”, who really wins? Cassandra and I spent much time in prayer and realized that it was time for us to move on. We especially knew it after reading this passage from Matthew 9:16-17

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

You see, I’m the new wine and my church, DMBC is the old wineskin. I brought new ideas and a new style of ministry,(new wine) but it was just too difficult for many people. For this, I’m truly sorry. We all tried to make it work but it just wasn’t a fit. Like David told King Saul, his clothes didn’t fit–neither did the one’s expected of me. So, I met with some of the leadership last week and we mutually agreed that it was in the best interest of the church and my family that I go ahead and leave.

So last night, I resigned as Pastor of DMBC. I have no where to go and we have no idea what the future holds. Is it hard? Yes, especially on my family. The last 5-6 years have been very tough. My kids are hurting from all the losses and the moves. I will do my best to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, even if it means I work in the secular world until maybe they leave home. If you want a “real” family who loves God and people, give me a call. I do need a job.
We have so many friends at DMBC who have supported me and my family and we are grateful. I’m sorry it had to end this way. I have many friends literally all over the world who have been praying for me. So many have e-mailed and called me this week-too many to thank by name-you know who you are.

THANKS! I realize I am a blessed man.

This book review has been a few weeks in coming. I hesitated reviewing it publicly for until now. You will understand tomorrow. This is a book I bought so I’m not under obligation to review it but I felt I needed to share it with you.

This book is a must read. Dr. Thom Rainer is the President of Lifeway and Eric Geiger is an Executive Pastor in South Florida. They did extensive research on why some churches seem to be growing more than others. The basic point to the entire book is get SIMPLE.

According to their research the churches that were seeing life change and growing spiritually and numerically were ones who were “SIMPLE.” They don’t have a lot of programing. They usually have Worship, small groups and they encourage their people to minister during the week. They say no to a lot to help people grow stronger in their faith. They want people to spend more time with their families and neighbors.

I remember when I was on staff at a highly programed church in Atlanta when this up-start church called Northpoint got up and going. I was never home and was “doing” ministry sometimes 5-6 nights a week. I would pull in my driveway and wave at my neighbors and never got to know them. However I heard that Northpoint was growing and “all” they did was have Sunday morning worship, small groups off site and encouraged their people to “Invest & Invite.” But I thought how could a church minister without programs? How could the people grow with so little to offer them?

Then one night I was at an Atlanta Falcon’s pre-season game with some men from our church. By the 4th quarter there wasn’t much going on but I overheard a pretty young single woman in front of me talking about “her church.” I leaned forward to listen some more. She did not appear the “church” type during the game but what she said changed my ideas forever. She said that she wasn’t the church type but Northpoint was changing her ideas about God. I don’t know if she ever became a follower of Christ but she wouldn’t have stepped foot in most churches.

Simple is in. Look at Google and Apple Computers. We complicate the Christian life by making it about what we “do” rather than what Jesus “did” when He died for our sins.
I highly recommend SIMPLE CHURCH and give it 4.7 hockey sticks out of 5.

We live in a busy world. Some people say idle hands is the devils workshop. I guess that depends on how idle you are. God designed humans to work but He also commanded us to rest. In fact, He created a day to protect us from ourselves.

Unfortunately, many people equate their spiritual life with how much they can “do” for God. We have churches that try to program events and activities 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. What this has led to is busy and overworked Christians. Usually, 20% of the people do 80% of the work anyway. Unfortunately people gauge their spiritual walk with Jesus based on a checklist of all that they have done for Him. But Jesus doesn’t want us to “do” because He has already “DONE” the work when He died on a cross for our sins.

Does this mean we don’t do anything? No. We should serve God because we want to and out of giftedness. I heard Bill Hybels (Gasp, I mentioned his name) said if someone steps down from a ministry and there was no one to step in they would not browbeat people into serving there. They would assume the Holy Spirit was done with that specific ministry.

I have witnessed people begging and guilting (I know it is not a word) into serving in a position just to get it filled. What ends up happening is the person who fills the position hates it and can’t perform because they aren’t serving out of their giftedness or they just give up. The people they are ministering to aren’t blessed either. I’m amused when someone tells me that God told them I should do this or that. I always say, “well He hasn’t told me.” The better way to say it is I would like you to pray about. That allows the person to say yes or no.

Sometimes the best word in ministry is:

• here it comes…
• it is…
• are you ready…

NO!

What do you think?