Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

I was a minister of evangelism for several years at a great church in the Southeast a few years back. It was my job to train people to share their story with their friends, family, co-workers and neighbors. My favorite style of sharing my faith has always been relationship oriented. However, because I was the “Evangelist,” there was a lot of pressure on me to see people give their lives to Jesus every week. Which meant I had get them to “walk the aisle” every Sunday during the invitation. It got to the point where it became more of a job than a concern for people. I became convicted that I was teaching people a form of evangelism that I didn’t believe in. I was leading people to Christ, but we would see people accept Christ and leave the church shortly after because we had no relationship with them. I even led someone to Christ on a dare with some other ministers at dinner one night. The turing point came when a man on my street had a crisis and we didn’t even know him because I was too busy evangelizing people who visited our church when I should have been building relationships with my neighbors! I began to feel like a professional evangelist instead of a friend and someone who really cared about people. That is why we left to start a church.

I’ve been serving as a minister in the workplace on and off since 2001. I worked for an organization that placed chaplains in the workplace part-time for 4 years while we were planting a church in Atlanta and then for a while in South Alabama. What I found out while I was a workplace chaplain was that I enjoyed being a chaplain more than I did pastoring or being on staff at a church. You see, I left coaching football and the business world because I wanted to minister to the people I worked with and I didn’t know how. However, once I became a pastor I was separated from the people whom I really had a burden to reach.

The organization I worked part-time for doesn’t hire full-time chaplains but I heard about Corporate Chaplains of America who does. I began serving 2 companies last year when I moved back to Alabama. My job also includes finding new companies to partner with us. I now serve 7 companies in the Birmingham area. We have another chaplain in Birmingham and one in Mobile and Huntsville as well as hundreds around the US. God is truly using our chaplains.

What I love about what we do is that we get to hang out with people who would never set foot in a church. The other thing that is great about our jobs is we do everything with the employee’s permission. Some people think that we shouldn’t force ourselves on employees. I agree and we don’t. Everything we do and the care we give is up to the employee themselves. If they don’t want to talk to us they don’t have to. There are a few employees at every company that chose not to talk to me and that is their choice. But we are always there for them 24/7/365 via our satellite paging system if they ever need us.

I never realized how God had prepared me for what I’m doing today. Two days ago I talked with an employee who is going through some things now that 2 years ago I would never be able to relate to. However, as of now, I can honestly tell this employee I can relate…I’ve been there…I am there. I can be open and vulnerable now. When I was a pastor, there were some church members that didn’t like knowing that their pastor struggled. Well, reality is we all struggle. I had the privilege of leading this employee to Christ.

While I was writing this I got paged by an employee whose father is in the hospital. I will be going by there tomorrow to see him and another employee I’ve been visiting since November. The one I’ve been visiting since November we once thought might die and may never walk again. Today he is learning to walk again. These are real life stories that happen everyday. Many of these people would have no church and no one to care for them emotionally and spiritually if it weren’t for their employers providing this service. If you want to read real life stories about what happens in the workplace I encourage you to read C-Change and The Third Awakening which are books written by our founder Mark Cress. The stories are real but the names have been changed because of confidentiality.

Yesterday I was making rounds and one employee told me he was reading Old Testament. He said, “there is a lot of strange sh@* in the Old Testament.” I don’t know if he was trying to see if I would scold him but I chuckled inside. We talked for a while and during our conversation he told me he had been kicked out of church as a youth because he threw a Coke bottle out of a church bus. What kind of discipline is that? Anyway, as we continued to talk he “Gave me Permission” to share how he could have a relationship with Jesus. He asked if he would have to quit drinking 1st. I told him that Jesus wanted him just like he was. Now Jesus may convict him and challenge his thinking later on but you don’t “clean up” 1st. So right there in this heavy industrial area this man a whole lot bigger than me gave his life to Christ.

I’m convinced that if Jesus were here in person today, He would go where the people are. The biggest mission field in the US is the workplace and people bring their hurts and problems to work. There are 115 Full-time chaplains with CCA and there are other workplace ministries that are similar. Many of these Chaplains are a whole lot more effective than I am. We have chaplains that lead people to Christ almost every day! Why? Because they genuinely care for these employees and their families. I would like to challenge those of you who do work in the secular world to be open to the Holy Spirit’s leading with your co-workers. For Pastors I would encourage you to find a way to be around people in the workplace. Our organization is now partnering with Southeastern Seminary to offer a degree in Workplace Ministry. Our founder’s dream is to see churches with Pastors of Workplace Ministry that are on staff to assist their members to minister to their co-workers. After all, most people are at work longer than they are anywhere else. If you are interested in what we do contact me, I’d love to share more about how we care for employees and their families.

[Yahoo News]

The Presbyterian Church USA’s statement of faith says God through Jesus Christ delivers followers “from death to life eternal.”
But one in three members of the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination seem to believe there’s some wiggle room for non-Christians to get into heaven, according to a recent poll. The Presbyterian Panel’s “Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians” found that 36 percent of members disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.” Another 39 percent, or about two-fifths, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

“There seems to be some universalist streak in Presbyterianism, where some Presbyterians are open to the idea of other paths that folks in other faiths might be taking,” said Perry Chang, administrator of the Presbyterian Panel, which convenes every three years.

The Presbyterian Church USA, with about 2.1 million members, is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country. A total of 3,450 Presbyterians responded to the study, which was mailed in October 2008. The panel issued the religious and demographic report last month.Polls asking similar questions about views on salvation have provided a wide range of results. A 2005 national survey funded by Baylor University found that 53 percent of the 1,721 adults who were polled agreed with the statement,

“Many religions lead to salvation,” and another 19 percent said “My religion is the one true faith that leads to salvation.”
A 2007 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation believe many religions can lead to eternal life.

Another study found that evangelical Christians may adhere to a much stricter interpretation of salvation. The 2008 report by Lifeway, the publishing and research arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, found that 75 percent of Protestants who hold “evangelical beliefs” strongly disagreed with the statement, “If a person is sincerely seeking God, he or she can obtain eternal life through religions other than Christianity.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Jesus Himself said in John 14:6:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So either Jesus is telling the truth or he is delusional or a liar. You can’t have it both ways. He is either the only way to heaven because that is what He said or He is a fraud. I believe He is who He said He is, God Himself. You can’t get to God by using opinion polls.

What do you think?

[Fox News]

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history. Christianity is plummeting in America, while the number of non-believers is skyrocketing.

A shocking new study of Americans’ religious beliefs shows the beginnings of a major realignment in Americans’ relationship with God. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reveals that Protestants now represent half of all Americans, down almost 20 percent in the last twenty years. In the coming months, America will become a minority Protestant nation for the first time since the pilgrims.

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history. Non-believers now represent the third-highest group of Americans, after Catholics and Baptists.

Read more here.

[From me]

Why do you think this is? I have a few ideas why. I think people are truly looking for a Spiritual encounter but what they find is religion. People don’t want religion, they want an encounter with God and people. I think we have been bad Public Relations agents for God. What the world needs to see is people whose lives are changed today not people waiting for Heaven. Heaven is going to be great but Jesus said He came to give us an abundant life today. We need to live that way.

What do you think?

[NY Times]

Brian Deegan and his band of freestyle motocross riders called the Metal Mulisha wore black and were covered in tattoos. They brawled, cursed and stirred up trouble. In their sport, they were the bad guys. So when Deegan was baptized, he wondered what his fans would think.

After a near-fatal crash in 2005 while attempting a back flip during filming for a television show, he lost a kidney and four pints of blood, and found religion. When a surgeon told him he might not survive, Deegan, 34, who has won more freestyle motocross medals at the X Games than any other rider, made a pact with God. If he lived, he would mend his ways. When he finally pulled through, he sought a pastor, began reading the Bible and “gave his life to Christ,” he said.

Soon his fellow freestyle riders Jeremy Lusk, Ronnie Faisst and Jeremy Stenberg, who is known as Twitch, began attending Bible study with Deegan.

“All the heavy hitters of the Mulisha are born-again Christians,” Deegan said. “I started tripping. ‘What are the fans going to think?’ I started getting nervous.”

Action sports like freestyle motocross and skateboarding were founded as antiestablishment activities. But events like the X Games, taking place this week in and around Los Angeles, have made them more mainstream. And as the sport’s culture has changed, some have recognized a greater profile for religion.

Read more here.

[From me]

It is amazing how God uses people in all walks of life. I’m sure if some of these guys walked into most churches they would scare some members with all of their tattoos and such. But isn’t it cool how God meets people where they are and when they find Christ they go all out to tell their friends and others about Him?

What do you think?

[Christian Post]

A former high school wrestling coach filed a federal lawsuit Monday against a Dearborn, Mich., high school and its Muslim principal a year after being fired.

Gerald Marszalek, who coached wrestling for 35 years, claims his contract with Fordson High School was terminated because of his association with a Christian volunteer coach, who the principal accused of converting a Muslim student to Christianity.

“We are getting a glimpse of what happens when Muslims who refuse to accept American values and principles gain political power in an American community,” said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of Thomas More Law Center, which filed the lawsuit on the former coach’s behalf.

The law firm is suing for violation of constitutional rights to free speech and exercise of religion, and Michigan laws against discrimination. Marszalek is seeking his back pay, injunctive and declaratory relief, damages, and to be reinstated as coach of the wrestling team.

Conflict arose more than three years ago when Marszalek’s volunteer assistant, Trey Hancock, held a summer wrestling camp where a Muslim camper converted.

According to Thomas More Law Center, Fordson High School principal Imad Fadlallah punched the student who converted and told him he had disgraced his family.

Fadlallah ordered Marszalek to ban his assistant from the school and all wrestling events.

Read more here.

[From me]

I thought we had freedom in this country to share our beliefs with others. They are going to get rid of a man who had influenced youth for 35 years because of his faith? Something is wrong in Dearborn. If we don’t watch it our nation will be Muslim before long.

What do you think?