Are house churches still the rebel step-child of American evangelicalism?

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine, May/June 2007

Since pollster George Barna released Revolution in 2005, discussion on the topic of house churches (aka simple churches, organic churches, micro-churches and so on) has grown to a fever pitch—ironically, alongside discussion of the undeniable growth of megachurches.

For those hiding under a rock, Barna’s estimate is that 8 percent to 9 percent of adults in the United States are now involved in some type of house church. And his prediction is that 70 percent of the church will be worshipping in non-traditional settings within the next 20 years.

When we say “non-traditional,” we’re not talking about those wacky churches that have WiFi in the sanctuary or a coffee kiosk in the lobby.

That’s so ’90s.

Nor is Barna (along with many others) envisioning house churches populated by disgruntled church hoppers with an insufferable superiority complex, assembled with the common denominator of their disdain for the institutional church.

That’s so ’70s.

The new house church movement is less predictable, more engaged with the institutional church and missional to the core. Not to say they don’t have their problems, but today’s house churches are virtually unrecognizable in comparison to their old-school predecessors.

A brief disclaimer is in order: Of course, the concept of the church meeting in homes is nothing new—from the household-based congregations Paul addressed (see Rom. 16:10,11; 1 Cor. 1:11,16, 16:15; 1 Tim. 3:12; 2 Tim 1:16; Tit. 1:11) to modern-day house church movements in China and India composed of millions of believers.

However, from the time of its institutionalization in the early fourth century, Western Christianity has been most visibly identified by the buildings in which it is practiced and the full-time clergy who administer its rites. All this is up for grabs in the postmodern world, in which the core values include distrust of authority, suspicion of structure and an unabashed pursuit of authenticity.

It is in this environment that ecclesiology gets stripped down to its lowest common denominators, and the champions of the new house church movement are surprisingly consistent on what those ingredients are.

HOUSE CHURCH DNA

“DNA—divine truth, nurturing relationship and apostolic mission,” explains Neil Cole, identifying what he believes are the core ingredients of the biblical church analogous to those of human biology. “My conviction is that without these happening, you don’t have any life or health. You can’t unravel the DNA into its component parts. Its only power is when it’s intact.”

The executive director of Church Multiplication Associates (cmaresources.org) and author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens, Cole has planted more than 700 churches in 32 states and 23 nations. Cole is not anti-traditional-church in the least—in fact (like many in the house church movement), he once served on staff at a megachurch, pastored his own congregation and maintains denominational ties (for him, Grace Brethren Church).

However, he believes that these ingredients can be left out of the mix in a traditional church without anyone noticing and the business of ministry not missing a beat. Others in today’s house church movement share Cole’s heritage in traditional congregations and conviction that the tried-and-true model may not be the only model for reaching people who would never walk in the doors of a typical church.

“Most of the house churches of the past were inwardly focused—an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality,” Cole explains. “Now, people are choosing this expression of church because it is healthier and more participatory. It suits the postmodern world very well—it’s relational, authentic and experiential.”

Unlike their counterparts of the past, most of today’s house church advocates are cautious in labeling their movement the “only” way. Many of them maintain relationships with denominations and traditional churches—and these denominations and churches are even finding ways to plant and support house churches themselves. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church sends out “missionaries” from its own flock to plant home-based congregations, and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is seeking new ways to embrace the movement.

For instance, in an article on his Website newchurches.com, Southern Baptist missiologist Ed Stetzer admits that “enthusiastic house church proponents have neglected some of the ecclesiology described in Scripture by de-emphasizing New Testament delegated leadership, misunderstanding the role of covenant and related church discipline, and a failure to practice the biblically prescribed ordinances.”

However, the research team director at the North American Mission Board notes that he’s more concerned about those who don’t see house churches as an authentic expression of biblical ecclesiology.

“The greater problem,” he says, “for the biblical house church is the millions of believers that consider their brick, institutionalized, non-multiplying church to be a more biblical model than the fifteen people meeting in a home with a passion to grow and multiply.” Citing the SBC’s initially negative response and eventual acceptance of the house church movement, Cole argues that every denomination will eventually have to deal with the reality of the trend. The response, he believes, will often hinge on the denomination’s view of clergy and education.

“The anabaptist denominations with a history of strong lay leaders will thrive in this new environment,” he notes. “The reformed denominations that require a high level of clergy education will have more challenges. However, even in the Reformed Church in America and other established presbyterial denominations, we’re seeing the movement happen—but it has to be more grassroots.”

Larry Kreider, international director of DOVE Christian Fellowship International (dcfi.org), a network of cell-based and house churches, envisions a future in which partnership between house churches and megachurches is the rule rather than the exception. In his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, leaders of both models meet for prayer and partnership.

“We have a leadership team of church leaders chosen by the body of Christ in our own area,” he explains. “On that team are megachurch leaders and house church leaders—all working together to honor one another.”

FROWNING ON TITLES

As Stetzer hints in his article, any discussion of the house church movement naturally gravitates toward leadership—particularly the concern that a lack of leadership is an invitation for chaos and heresy. While few house church advocates deny the need for leadership, they often define it in radically different terms from their counterparts in the traditional church.

“I would call myself ‘pro-leadership,’ but ‘anti-positional leadership,’” Cole says. “When your authority is based on the position or title, and you need a position or title to lead, chances are you’re not a real leader.”

Tony Dale and his wife, Felicity, who lead a house church in Austin, Texas, are the founders of House2House magazine (house2house.net) and have written several books on the simple church movement.

“Leadership does not demonstrate itself in titles and positions,” Tony argues. “Our idea of leadership is that of a father who longs for his children to overtake him.”

Dale admits that this model is not unique to the house church movement and even points out abusive situations in which house church leaders have exerted Machiavellian rule over their domains. However, he argues that the traditional church’s strong distinction between professional clergy and laity is designed to keep people in “perpetual spiritual infancy.”

Conversely, house churches often function from a bottom-up structure. While there may be one leader who directs meetings, leads worship sessions or mediates conflict, participants usually have a say in the weekly activities and long-term vision of the group. For other home churches, this role rotates or is shared among a group of leaders.

Likewise, many in the house church movement embrace the values of the apostolic and prophetic movements. They militate against the more “governmental” expressions of ecclesiology often associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. “I agree with C. Peter Wagner that we desperately need apostolic and prophetic types that the church is built on,” Tony Dale notes. “But I would completely reject any concept that this is governmental. It isn’t the force of their personality. It isn’t that they are classic great leaders. It’s what they do by laying down their lives that prepares the groundwork for what they’re going to accomplish.”

Dale cites the house church movement in China—much of which was carried forward by women and teenagers. For house church advocates like the Dales, the movement is a hothouse for a new type of leader that leads from brokenness and weakness rather than personal charisma.

“Under the old paradigm of church,” Felicity contends, “success is measured by growth, whether that is in numbers, finances or real estate; in the new paradigm, success is based on faithfulness. God is looking for leaders who walk with a limp; those who, like Jacob, have fought with God and surrendered unconditionally to Him. They have learned from the disappointments and challenges of following him through good times and bad.”

But even its strongest advocates suggest that the house church movement could endanger itself by resisting leadership in an effort to redefine it. Many would suggest that George Barna’s equation in his book Revolution of two guys playing golf as church is dangerously minimalistic. Barna himself notes that the small-group movement has long struggled as an effective means of growing people spiritually because of a lack of good leadership, and he believes that the house church movement will have to face the same issue.

For Kreider, a church without a leader is not fully a church—in much the same way that a family without a father is not fully a family.

“Local churches are much more than two believers at Starbucks,” he explains. “They can be, if there’s a sense of godly authority and leadership. But families need parents, and the church is a family. To assume that a bunch of kids without parents is a family is an incorrect assumption.”

Kreider argues that the governmental aspect of leadership has “gotten a bad rap” because of abusive leaders—but that it’s no excuse to embrace an anarchistic or isolationist view of church.

“Whether we like it or not, we have to have some form of leadership,” he notes. “I have to govern my family, my checkbook.”

REAL-WORLD ENTRY POINT

In a culture increasingly skeptical of top-down leadership, the house church movement’s democratized view of authority is attractive to the jaded. But equally significant are house churches’ ability to provide a “customized” model of worshipping God that avoids the enculturated stereotypes of institutional church.

“The world is interested in Jesus; it is His wife they don’t want to spend time with,” Neil Cole observes in his book, Organic Church. “We tell people they must take the bitter pill of ‘church’ if they want to even hear about Jesus. Most would rather die of the disease than consume the medicine.”

Of course, this concept is nothing new. From Christian rock concerts and skateboard demonstrations to fishing trips and Halloween alternative parties, congregations have found new ways to lure church-wary unbelievers into “safe” environments where they can be evangelized.

But house church advocates do not see a need for these entry-level venues where the uninitiated can warm up to the idea of joining the institutional church. “Why not bring the church to the sinner?” they ask. With that philosophy in hand, micro-church planters have launched congregations in dorm rooms, parking lots, restaurants, health clubs and even bars.

While some who participate in these “congregations” may end up attending a traditional church at some point, house church advocates contend all of the elements of biblical ecclesiology can be present in a group of two or three people just as effectively as two or three thousand people. And the small-group dynamic provides a low-risk environment for both the seeker and the skeptic.

“My wife leads a house church, the majority of whose attendees are first-generation Christians. The majority would not have gone and do not go to a conventional church,” Kreider explains, but he also recalls an instance in which some unsaved people were befriended by house-church members, invited to services—and then shocked to find out they were attending church. “We also have people who have grown up Roman Catholic and left it years ago—and congregations made up of pre-Christians.”

It is this flexibility and openness that allows house churches to multiply in what some describe as a “viral” manner. Traditional church planting has often been carried out with an “addition” model. One congregation or denomination raises money that is in turn dumped into a single church plant in a geographical area deemed ripe for the picking. Problem is, this high-capital, high-risk model sometimes fails, resulting in disillusioned church planters who wonder why vast resources, savvy marketing and even a good dose of prayer didn’t spell success.

“What we need is new wineskins,” Kreider says. “There’s a harvest coming, and we need to be prepared to bring it in. To do this, God will raise up saints to be ministers. The problem is that many times people are too busy in church programs that they don’t have time to be Christians. We need church-planting movements worldwide that will reproduce.”

Additionally helpful to the growth curve, many house churches carry the DNA of the fastest-growing segment of the global church: the charismatic/Pentecostal experience. While many house churches would not identify themselves as “charismatic” or “Pentecostal,” spirit-filled expressions are often commonplace in home-based congregations.

And house-church advocates tend to be more open toward this type of activity—regardless of their denominational heritage. Barna’s research reflects this openness toward the gifts of the Spirit. Among the house church participants he surveyed, 58 percent of their meetings have a prophecy or special word delivered.

“I was taught cessationist doctrine,” Cole notes. “But our team of leaders began to question that and searched out what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and made some pretty revolutionary decisions.”

Although the physical context for house church meetings is often unconventional, the basic structure is similar: Scripture reading, personal sharing, prayer, worship and—almost universally—eating together. And theologically, house churches tend to be overwhelmingly conservative—in faith and practice.

“There’s a strong, traditional, classic, evangelical theology and biblical foundation,” Tony Dale explains. “What’s happening isn’t so much that people’s theology is changing, but their ecclesiology is changing. They’re beginning to think of church as a living, vibrant organism.”

In a recent interview with Ministry Today, Barna, who calls the new simple church advocates “revolutionaries,” cites some of their spiritual habits: “Revolutionaries …

• donate almost twice as much money every year for religious purposes as do non-revolutionary born-again Christians.”
• are three times more likely to study the Bible every day.”
• are more than three times more likely to have family Bible studies every day as non-revolutionary born agains who are married and have kids.”
• are slightly less than twice as likely to believe in moral absolutes.”
• are almost twice as likely to believe Satan is real, not just a symbol of evil.”

Barna’s prediction is not so much that this movement will supercede the traditional church, but that it will influence it—for better—and that it will challenge leaders in the traditional church to rethink paradigms for spiritual growth and discipleship.

“Any good leader is looking to the future. What we’re looking at is a future in which alternative forms of faith community will be prevalent—which says that, if I’m the pastor or leader in a conventional church, I need to think about making that transition,” he argues. “I would begin working with youth and children to prepare them for a different type of church.”

But as Cole warns, the house church movement will always be challenged to resist the natural gravity of institutionalism. His solution? A “theology of death”—an idea that has applications outside the boundaries of the house church movement. Applied to the church, Cole argues that, if a church survives only a year—but gives birth to two other churches—it’s healthier than a congregation that lasts 15 years and never reproduces.

“We’ve come to realize that there are some words of Christ that relate to this: ‘If you hold on to your life, you lose it; if you lose it for My sake, you’ll save it,’” he explains. “We need to build into our structures the truth that we do not want to stay alive forever. We will never make plans to keep ourselves alive—this is the sin of self-preservation. We’re no longer trying to keep church alive. Once you start talking about a career, you’ve already died.”

While Kreider reflects this same caution of institutionalism, he’s also concerned that house churches face the same challenge of the charismatic/Pentecostal movement of 30 years ago—that of ridicule and persecution from traditional church leaders who may not see the Spirit’s activity in this unconventional new model.

“I’m concerned that those of us who are more traditional—who may come from a more conventional model—may persecute this next move of God,” he says. “And that those of us involved in house churches would not get puffed up with pride. It’s an important way, but not the only way. I find myself in a vulnerable place. I have a lot of history with megachurches and community churches—but I have a heart for this new generation.”

copyright 2007, Strang Communications

Reinventing accountability in a world of superstar leaders.

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine, Jan/Feb 2007

November 2006 may have been the toughest month in 20 years for American evangelicals. One of our brightest stars fell. As president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Ted Haggard was assertive and winsome in representing the convictions of 30 million evangelicals in the halls of political power. He was thoughtful and unpredictable in his desire to build partnerships and embrace broad issues of social concern.

As pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Haggard was a committed charismatic, who reflected the respect Spirit-filled believers are being granted in wider evangelical circles.

But he was also a deeply flawed man, who hid a dark secret none of us could have imagined. His fall from grace raises the same questions that surface whenever the hidden failures of a high-profile leader are made public.

Although even the most elaborate accountability processes can be circumvented, could this situation have been avoided? Are there patterns of behavior that should serve as warning signs to church leaders and their congregations? Are the “superstar” positions of power and influence that characterize 21st-century evangelicalism too much for any man or woman to handle without cracking under the pressure and succumbing to their worst flaws? How does the church regain credibility when its own spokespeople seem to be strangely vulnerable to the very sins that it so vigorously condemns?

In the days following Haggard’s admission and removal from leadership, Ministry Today talked with some of the leaders involved—as well as others who have navigated the waters of failure, discipline and restoration. Although many were unable to go on the record with more details than have already been covered ad nauseam in the media, several key observations distill that demand a shift in the way we deal with prevention, discipline and restoration in the wake of a moral failure.

INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT

At a time when some Christian organizations possess influence and notoriety on a level with Fortune 500 companies, the days of family-run ministries with secretive policies and no outside accountability have officially run their course. If anything, the Haggard scandal revealed the necessity of efficient, open processes of addressing ethical and moral accusations.

Perhaps wearied of denials and top-secret investigations that last for months with no substantive conclusion, commentators in the media seemed almost incredulous with how quickly the wheels of truth began to turn when allegations about Haggard first broke.

Within 72 hours, a megachurch pastor and one of the most influential evangelicals in America was exposed, unseated and placed in restoration. The bottom line? Every leader, no matter how powerful, should serve at the behest of an independent board of directors that has the power and fortitude to act quickly and decisively.

Unfortunately, the oversight for many prominent churches and ministries is left in the hands of employees and family members, leaving an organization vulnerable to accusation with no independent means of clearing its reputation.

For instance, in 1998, when a former Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) employee threatened to go public with his claim to have had a homosexual relationship with TBN founder Paul Crouch, rather than have the TBN board (composed of Paul, his wife, Jan, and his son Paul Jr.) investigate the claim and clear his name, Crouch paid the accuser $425,000 in hush money. Unfortunately, when the money ran out, the accuser came back in 2004 asking for $10 million more. When he didn’t get it, he took his story to the Los Angeles Times.

For members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), this is a non-issue. The ECFA has stringent requirements for entry—one of which is that “every member organization shall be governed by a responsible board of not less than five individuals, a majority of whom shall be independent, which shall meet at least semiannually to establish policy and review its accomplishments.”

Although some leaders Ministry Today spoke with cited the stringent and costly membership standards of the ECFA, one need not join the ECFA to enjoy a comparable level of security and accountability. Any ministry could create its own structure of accountability by appointing an outside board and making its financial activities public.

Although not a member of ECFA, New Life Church had policies written into its bylaws, prescribing a process of investigation and, if necessary, discipline in the event that allegations were made against the church’s leadership.

Thomas Gehring is a Los Angeles-based attorney for several megachurches and national ministries. Also the founder of Concilium, a dispute resolution service, he notes that, although state laws usually require a nonprofit organization to be governed by an independent board (no more than 49 percent family members, employees and so on), these same laws do not apply to churches.

However, Gehring emphasizes the importance of an independent board to the ministries he counsels and dispels the myth that such a board puts a crimp on the effectiveness of a visionary leader.

“I’ve seen an independent board actually help a ministry grow. It’s an integral part of church government and church growth,” he explains. “The talent that you can bring to a board is just phenomenal.”

Regardless of the legal loopholes that allow churches to avoid having an independent board, Gehring points out that the public has high expectations of churches and religious organizations.

“The government, judges and juries expect you as a religious organization to take the high road,” he contends. “You’re supposed to do even better than just adhering to the law.”

INTERNAL INCENTIVE

These internal policies are worthwhile, not just for ethical reasons, but for legal protection, as Pasadena, California, pastor Ché Ahn discovered. Ahn leads Harvest Rock Church and is the founder of Harvest International Ministry (HIM), a network of 4,960 churches in 32 nations. In 2004, Ahn was faced with a crisis when one of the pastors he oversaw was exposed in ongoing homosexual behavior. When HIM attempted a process of discipline, the organization was sued.

“The sad thing was that the lawsuit essentially short-circuited the restoration process,” he notes, “because we had to delegate it to someone else.”

The incident prompted Ahn and his team of 23 apostles to tighten up restrictions for membership and ongoing accountability. New applicants for HIM membership must now complete a form drafted by an attorney clearly stating that HIM has the right to exercise discipline in the event of sexual immorality, financial impropriety or doctrinal heresy.

As Ahn discovered, when a ministry’s bylaws do not account for potentialities such as moral failure, that ministry is at the mercy of the offending party, who may see an opportunity to drag an organization into a costly and demoralizing court battle. In the current litigious climate, churches are not immune to the attacks of predatory lawyers and embittered constituents, and ministries would do well to re-examine their policies for hiring, firing and disciplining employees.

But some leaders point out that these mechanistic policies—although worthwhile—do not address the root causes of sexual failure that lead to such disciplinary problems in the first place.

“The church has fallen into a false naivete,” says Doug Weiss, an author and counselor specializing in sex addiction. “We’re still holding pastors to a 17th-century standard of purity, while they’re living in a culture of immorality.”

Increasingly isolated ministers in an increasingly sexualized culture is a volatile combination, Weiss argues.

“Ministers tend to get caught before they actually admit to sexual addiction,” he notes. “And we have not dealt with increasing problems of this among our leaders much better than the Catholic Church and its abuse scandals. Instead, we should be dealing with sexual sin when its small—before it leads to death.”

The founder of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Weiss attends New Life Church and is involved in Haggard’s restoration process, but he declined to comment on the specifics of the process for reasons of confidentiality. However, he regularly consults with ministers battling sex addiction—as well as the churches they serve—and contends that as many as 50 percent of Christian men are sex addicts in some form or another.

Weiss’ solution? Lie detector tests. The psychologist recommends that churches administer them to employees annually as a further incentive to keep pastors and church leaders pure. According to Weiss, sex addicts will not apply for positions that require polygraphs, for fear of being exposed. Additionally, polygraphs help churches effectively restore and monitor staff members struggling with sex addiction.

“If the church is sued for the sexual problems of a staff member, this allows churches to legitimately say to the public, ‘We’ve done our due diligence,’” Weiss notes. “If evangelicals do not decide to be proactive about our leaders and the issue of sex addiction, and perform due diligence in whom we hire as ministers of the gospel, there is a legitimate concern that God will have lawyers help us do so.”

Weiss admits that some see polygraph tests as merely a mechanism for changing behavior, not for transforming the hearts of sex addicts, In response, he cites Numbers 5:11-30 in which God instructs the Israelites on how to determine the guilt or innocence of a suspected adulteress by having her drink a potion of water and altar ashes. Sometimes its these practical measures that protect us from spiritual downfalls, he argues.

“Spiritual people fall every day. In Revelation and in 1 Corinthians, there were people who were loving the Lord and people who were immoral, martyrs and sinners side by side,” he explains. “The polygraph helps kill the flesh.”

As far as concerns about the reliability of polygraph tests, Weiss quips, “They are 98 percent reliable—100 percent more reliable than most sex addicts I know.”

VOLUNTARY ACCOUNTABILITY

Although polygraphs can serve as an effective preventative measure against sexual sin, Weiss notes that our individualistic models of ministry are essentially a breeding ground for immoral conduct.

“Jesus sent the disciples out two by two,” Weiss points out, noting that this was probably not just for reasons of friendship or camaraderie, but also for protection against sin. “That was a good policy—not one that suspects everyone is guilty, but one that protects them from becoming so.”

As a useful guideline, Ahn cites the “Modesto Manifesto,” a document Billy Graham and his team of evangelists drafted in 1948 addressing the dangers of sexual immorality, criticism of local churches and exaggerated publicity. One well-known guideline in the manifesto required Graham to be accompanied at all times by a fellow male minister, to protect from accusation and ensure accountability.

“However, no matter what systems you’ve set up, you can find loopholes,” Ahn notes. “Even if you travel with someone or someone always knows where you are. The real issue is the root issue of the heart. The root cause is pride, arrogance, thinking we’re above this.”

If anything, the Haggard fall illustrates that every pastor needs someone to whom he can tell his darkest secrets, his most destructive inclinations, his most painful failures. It is in the shadows of secrecy that we are vulnerable to our own depravity—secrecy that is often cultivated by the distance our positions create.

Although he has no means of enforcing it in HIM, Ahn encourages leaders in his network to have at least one person with whom they can have total freedom—a confessor. Ahn emphasizes that these voluntary decisions to be accountable must be made when someone is less prominent, less successful and has less to lose.

For many pastors, this level of transparency is essentially nonexistent, as a July 10, 2006 Barna Group study reveals. Sixty-one percent of pastors say they have no close personal friends. Simultaneously, the survey reveals that “one-sixth of today’s pastors feel under-appreciated. Pastors also deal with family problems: one in every five contends that they are currently ‘dealing with a very difficult family situation.’ ”

Many argue that this combination of isolation and deep spiritual and family challenges so common in church leaders is essentially a recipe for disaster. The only solution: deliberate, voluntary, relational transparency.

In the sidebar ” ‘I Was There’ ” (page 24) former Pentecostal pastor Nate Larkin reinforces this principle of mutual transparency in an autobiographical account of his own sexual failure in the mid-’80s and the subsequent decades of recovery.

“This is what I have had with another brother for 27 years,” Ahn notes. “We share everything, from when we slip and watch something on television we shouldn’t to blowing it with masturbation. It’s that kind of transparency that we need to have with someone else.”

CLEANUP DUTY

With the exception of Haggard’s family, no one felt the pain of his failure more than the New Life Church family, who endured the probing questions of media and neighbors wondering how they could put faith in such a flawed person.

Ministry Today recently talked with Steven Todd, a former pastor, New Life member and executive director of special projects for Africa Ministries Network, a missions organization with offices in Colorado Springs.

Todd is hopeful that the church will recover from the blow of Haggard’s failure, citing the swiftness and finality with which Louisiana pastor Larry Stockstill and others on the board of overseers dealt with the accusations.

“It saved the church from weeks of ‘he said she said’ and a growing polarization of sides—perhaps those who would have been ‘pro-Ted’ and those against him,” he explains, describing the discipline process as an “amputation,” a drastic act bringing health to the congregation.

In hindsight, Todd admits that Haggard’s notoriety placed undue strain on the congregation—and on Haggard himself.

“Lots of us began to tire just a bit from the constant presence of TV cameras in the sanctuary from CNN and other news outlets,” he notes. “But quite frankly, Ted seemed to be handling it in stride. A joke around the church prior to the fall was, ‘What is the acronym for Attention Deficit Disorder? Answer: TED.’”

In the weeks following the crisis, Todd notes that the church staff at New Life has been proactive about communicating with New Life’s hundreds of small groups, providing them with information as it becomes available and encouraging discussion and healing. While no church can be entirely prepared for the implosion of its leader, Todd emphasizes the benefit of strong structures and decisive action when such a failure occurs.

“The key to all this has been honesty—from the leadership, in particular,” he explains. “We can’t shove it under the carpet or blame the devil. We have to face it head on. The presence of the overseer board, particularly Larry Stockstill, is extremely significant. We felt that we were not ‘alone’ and it provided a ballast for the congregation.”

A RENEWED VOICE

Admittedly, the failure of Haggard was a tough blow to those who appreciated the fresh manner in which he engaged political leaders in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Haggard avoided the combative rhetoric that characterized conservative Christianity for the last 25 years, and he was frequently quoted in national media as the voice of American evangelicalism. In retrospect, perhaps we put all our eggs in one basket.

Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, in the Orlando, Florida, area, serves on the board of directors of the NAE. He notes that this tendency to let someone else speak on our behalf is natural—and biblical—but that it does not negate the responsibility of local leaders and individuals to initiate direct communication with their representatives.

“We will always appreciate and look for a natural leader or spokespersons,” he notes. “Teams and individuals do not replace the need for a go-to leader. Nowhere in the Old or New Testaments was much progress made without a leader stepping up to the task.”

At the same time, some have suggested that Haggard’s prominence was something of an anomaly created by the convergence of an evangelical in the White House, a Republican Congress, a war with Islamic extremists and the growth of the megachurch movement—phenomena that may be drawing to a close with the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and the election of a new president in 2008. With this in mind, Haggard’s departure reinforces the need for a variety of voices—each emphasizing different biblical concerns.

“The voices will become more sophisticated and focused, not unlike how the major channels have given way to the cable competition. There is not only FOX News, but also the History Channel, movie channels and so on,” Hunter predicts. “So there will be different groups of Christians more focused on specific concerns. But what will not change is the requirement for a biblical basis for our voices and votes.”

For better or for worse, the shepherding of this voice is ultimately in the hands of flawed human beings—whose lives sometimes contradict the very values they espouse. Far from an excuse to stop speaking, this factor emphasizes the need for leaders to build walls of protection and networks of accountability to protect the integrity of our voice. The world is watching. God is watching. Where do we go from here?

copyright 2007, Strang Communications

How evangelicals are reclaiming the environmental agenda on a biblical foundation.

A group of 86 prominent evangelical leaders stirred up controversy earlier this year when it backed a major initiative for environmental stewardship called “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.” Signatories included pastors, educators and denominational officials from a broad swath of evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal traditions, including pastor and author Rick Warren, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel president Jack Hayford and Wheaton College president Duane Litfin.

Soon after the document’s release, 22 high-profile evangelicals sent a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals, urging the body not to issue any statement on global warming or to allow its officers or staff members to take a position, arguing that, “global warming is not a consensus issue.”

Signatories of this counter-document included Prison Fellowship Founder Charles Colson, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Recently, Ministry Today sat down with Joel C. Hunter, pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Fla., to discuss this new brand of evangelical environmentalism. Hunter signed the original document and also appeared as a spokesperson for TV commercials promoting the initiative’s agenda. Hunter notes that the initiative has been largely welcomed—especially among younger evangelicals.

“There’s a part of emerging Christianity who’ve been waiting for leadership in this area,” he says. “There will always be some who will be scared, but that’s not the majority of what we’re hearing.”

While he recognizes that some who are against the initiative may object to the partnerships with more liberal groups that such a stand may bring, Hunter contends that biblical obedience must trump political concerns. We asked him to respond to some of the concerns of opponents of evangelical environmentalism:

Ministry Today: Some would say there are more pressing, “eternal” issues at stake. In other words, why focus on creation care when millions still need to hear the gospel?

Joel Hunter: This is not a focus. This is part of a full and comprehensive spreading of the gospel. In the future, I believe service and social witness are going to be the main venue for evangelism. We will be able to do more to spread the gospel by addressing some of the practical issues of people’s needs than if we had just gone in there and started preaching the Word. We’ll build up credibility as being a people who care about more than just spreading their own religion.

Ministry Today: Don’t government-enforced environmental regulations ultimately hurt poor people by raising the cost of goods and services?

Hunter: We think the poor can be hurt more by the devastation that may be caused in part by global warming than by any government-imposed sanctions. There can be a remedy to this by a business-generated, economically-suitable cure for the problem, rather than simply imposing a top-down solution. There are ways to build both jobs and economic incentives to solve the problem, rather than mandate certain limits. Government needs to partner in this. It’s more than an NGO [non-government organization] can cure.

Ministry Today: Although there are scientific indications that global warming is occurring, how do we know that it’s humanly-generated?

Hunter: I have in front of me the executive summary for the National Academy of Sciences document on climate change science. Its first sentence starts out like this: “Greenhouse gasses are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activity.” You can go from “We are a major cause” to “We are a minimum cause.” Either way, we are still a cause.

Ministry Today: Doesn’t an emphasis on environmental concerns distract the church from more pressing political and social issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and poverty?

Hunter: I think it’s just the opposite. There will always be a few Christian leaders who focus on one or two or three issues, because that’s their heart—that’s their passion. But I think that the more Christians are involved in addressing the problems of society, it is going to give us greater credibility for the issues that we are concerned about. In other words, as we get more involved in society in multiple ways, we’ll be seen as a force to reckoned with. We’ll have a momentum that enhances our impact on certain issues, rather than takes away from. It’s not an either/or issue, it’s both/and.

Ministry Today: How do signers of this initiative avoid supporting a pantheistic worldview that is often at the heart of environmentalism?

Hunter: Here’s what Christians have to do: We have to continue to frame the issue as one of biblical obedience, appreciating the Creator by taking care of His creation. Simply put, Christians are doing this out of reverence for God, out of respect for his gifts, rather than out of any devotion to the gift. The earth is the Lord’s, and that’s why we’re doing this.

Ministry Today: Doesn’t “dominion” over the earth imply that we would eventually use—or even exhaust the resources—we’ve been given?

Hunter: That has been grossly misinterpreted. Dominion is defined in Genesis 2:15 when God puts the man in the garden to cultivate it and to keep it. In those two words we have the definition of dominion. The first is abad—”to make use of.” The second is shamar—”to protect and safeguard.” So, we can’t exploit the gift of creation and use it up. We have to develop it in a way that respects it and protects it. We have to be sure that we don’t use the old cultural definition of dominion. The biblical definition has everything to do with protecting and serving.

Ministry Today: The signs of the times indicate we may be nearing the return of Christ. So, why focus on this right now?

Hunter: First, if Christ comes back right away, wouldn’t it be nice to have him find us doing what we’re supposed to do? It’s very important that we don’t protect the earth for utilitarian purposes. Our focus is obedience. Obedience is right whether it’s utilitarian or not. We want to obey God no matter how long or how short Christ is in His return. Plus, we’re going to be judged for our works. If we don’t care for the earth, we’re going to be asked, “What did you do with what I gave you?” We don’t want to answer, “We trashed it.”

Ministry Today: It doesn’t seem this debate has been settled among scientists—let alone church leaders. So shouldn’t we avoid it altogether rather than make ourselves look foolish?

Hunter: The reason we’re doing this is not because of the science. Since when do Christians need scientific confirmation to do what God tells them to do? What will really make Christians look foolish is talking about religion as though it’s something inside a church, without our faith blessing all the families of the earth, which is really why God called a people unto himself in Genesis 12:3. If we want to look foolish, sit inside our churches and do things that don’t matter to the world. That’s what will look foolish.

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
May/June 2006

A groundbreaking study on U.S.megachurches shatters every myth we had about America’s 1,200 largest congregations.

In 1960 there were 16 churches in America with attendance of more than 2,000. Now, fewer than 50 years later, there are 1,210 such churches—nearly twice as many as there were five years ago.

Not only have megachurches captured the attention of the evangelical community, but they’ve become a force to be reckoned with in the wider culture. Their pastors provide counsel to presidents, their congregations are courted by legislators and their resources are harnessed for civic functions and during natural disasters.

In 1960 there were 16 churches in America with attendance of more than 2,000. Now, fewer than 50 years later, there are 1,210 such churches—nearly twice as many as there were five years ago.

Not only have megachurches captured the attention of the evangelical community, but they’ve become a force to be reckoned with in the wider culture. Their pastors provide counsel to presidents, their congregations are courted by legislators and their resources are harnessed for civic functions and during natural disasters.

In 2005, four megachurch pastors had books on The New York Times bestseller list, and one of these books (Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life) has become the best-selling hardcover non-fiction book in U.S. history.

The attention these churches and their pastors generate is not entirely flattering. In an interview in the Feb. 22 edition of Australia’s The Age, World Council of Churches General Secretary Samuel Kobia describes megachurches as “two miles long and one inch deep.” The decision of several prominent megachurches to cancel services on Christmas day drew the ire of American evangelicals and became fodder for discussion on secular newscasts. Books from Os Guinness’ 1993 Dining With the Devil to this year’s Left Behind in a Megachurch World by church historian Ruth Tucker and O Shepherd, Where Art Thou? by seminary professor Calvin Miller have criticized what they see as the commercialization, materialism or shallow theology perpetuated by megachurches.

In almost schizophrenic fashion, American evangelicals have been quick to either uncritically embrace the numeric success of megachurches as a sign of spiritual renewal … or cynically attribute it to cultural compromise. But the truth may be somewhat less obvious, as recent research would suggest.

Released February 3, Megachurches Today 2005 is a research study of more than 1,800 churches conducted by the Dallas-based Leadership Network and Hartford (Connecticut) Seminary’s Institute for Religion Research (HIRR). The study follows on the heels of the 2000 Faith Communities Today study conducted by HIRR and reveals shifts in the growth patterns, geographical distribution and ministry dynamics of America’s largest churches. In the course of the research, key characteristics of megachurches distilled—often corresponding with commonly-held myths surrounding the growth, leadership and activities of megachurches. Ministry Today got a sneak-peak at the study shortly before its release and had a chance to talk with the researchers behind it. Here’s what we discovered:

MythOne

All megachurches are alike.

There are several characteristics that most megachurches possess—well-educated pastors, youthful attendees and conservative politics, according to Megachurches Today 2005. (As expected, only two percent of megachurches describe themselves as politically “liberal.”) In fact, the study notes that they often “have more in common with each other than they do with smaller churches.”

However, the monolithic stereotype of the suburban, white, theologically “vanilla”, newly-established megachurch may need to be adjusted. For instance, while many churches have earned the status of “mega” in recent years—giving the impression that large churches are sprouting in places where there were none to begin with—the median year that these churches were founded is 1965.

Diversity most vividly shows in the worship styles of megachurches—60 percent of which claim they have changed the style of their services “some” or “a lot” in the past five years. Increasing accessibility and openness to using technology has led to implementation of multimedia aids such as video projection, increasing from 65 percent in 2000 to 91 percent in 2005.

But nowhere is this diversity seen more than in music styles, where, in the past five years, the use of traditional instruments such as pianos and organs has declined and the use of drums, bass and electric guitars increased to 80 percent. This trend in itself is intriguing—particularly in light of the fact that the percentage of megachurches that identify themselves as charismatic or Pentecostal has declined from 25 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2005.

Geographically, megachurches are most prevalent in the Sunbelt, with California leading the pack as the state with the most megachurches (178), followed by Texas (157), Florida (85) and Georgia (73). With the exception of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming, every state has at least one church with more than 2,000 members.

In spite of these apparent regional concentrations of megachurches Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary, as well as a researcher on the Megachurches Today 2005 study, believes that a geographical “decentering” is occurring.

“I fully expect to see more megachurches in New England, in the midsection and up the northwest coast of the U.S.,” he notes.

MythTwo

Megachurches are fixated on raising and spending money.

The average megachurch brings in about $6 million per year in income, with expenditures at $5.6 million. This can give the impression that megachurches spend a lot of time raising money to support burgeoning staffs, buildings and programs.

However, according to the survey, fundraising ranked lowest on a list of activities that respondents viewed as important—behind study groups, religious education, prayer, pastoral care, evangelism, music, fellowship and social service.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this lack of pressure is the relative ease with which megachurches attract volunteer labor. The study noted these churches employ an average of 20 full-time, paid leadership staff positions and nine part-time positions—in addition to 22 full-time and 15 part-time administrative support staff positions.

However, megachurches manage to engage the labors of an average of 284 volunteers, who each donate five or more hours a week to church work—a ratio of 10 attendees to one staff or volunteer.

MythThree

Megachurches all meet in cavernous sanctuaries on enormous campuses.

In the age of sky-high real estate prices and building-supply costs, large churches must sometimes improvise to accommodate growth. In the Faith Communities Today 2000 study, a majority of respondents felt they had “insufficient building space for many areas of their ministries,” and this trend has only become more noticeable in the past five years.

For instance, the average attendance at a megachurch in 2005 is 3,585, but the average seating capacity is only 1,400. (In fact, only five percent of megachurches have sanctuaries of 3,000 seats or more.) As a result, 97 percent of megachurches hold multiple worship services, and five percent hold nine or more each weekend.

Another way this disparity in congregation size and seating capacity is remedied is through satellite locations. At least 50 percent of megachurches use a combination of multiple venues and satellite locations to accommodate growth.

A recent book on this trend, The Multi-Site Church Revolution (by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon and Warren Bird) predicts that 30,000 American churches will be multi-site within the next few years. The authors suggest this phenomenon is driven just as much by missiological goals as it is practical constraints and cite churches as small as 30 that have launched satellite congregations.

In a recent interview with Ministry Today, Bird (who was also one of the researchers in the Megachurches Today 2005 study) noted one of these missiological goals is more effectively reaching youth and teens.

“Many new megachurch facilities are smaller in worship capacity but proportionately bigger in their children’s and youth facilities,” he says. “For example, consider Christ’s Church of the Valley, Peoria, Ariz. [www.ccvonline.com]. Eleven thousand worship on a typical weekend, and the sanctuary—which seats 2,800—is well-designed and wired for all kinds of media. Yet the bigger square footage and expense has gone to the facilities used for children and youth.”

MythFour

Megachurches exist for spectator worship and are not serious about personal devotion or theological depth.

Because of their size—and the multiple services that most offer on any given weekend—megachurches must painstakingly plan each aspect of their services for efficiency and consistency. Arguably, this level of routine could constrict the flow of authentic ministry on any given Sunday and give congregants the impression that they are merely spectators at an entertainment event.

However, 78 percent of survey respondents described their congregations as holding “strong beliefs and values,” and the study noted that practices such as personal Bible study, prayer, tithing and family devotions are emphasized by the church as important aspects of the Christian faith.

Perhaps nowhere is the personal devotion of megachurch attendees more evident than in their propensity to invite friends, neighbors and family members to church with them. 58 percent of megachurches report that evangelism and recruiting is a key emphasis of their ministry. Although megachurches harness mailing lists, TV advertising, newsletters and events to draw new congregants, their most effective method is to encourage members to invite others to services.

When it comes to theology, megachurches are sometimes described as shallow in their approach—with sermons focusing on practical topics often beginning with “How to …” rather than theological exposition. Warren Bird cautions against the universalization of this stereotype, however.

“In some camps of the seeker model this statement might be true, but the major trend in megachurches is toward life application of Bible truths,” he notes. “Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill in Seattle [www.marshillchurch.org] and John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis [www.bbcmpls.org]—and many old line denominational churches—are almost entirely theological in their teaching.”

MythFive

Megachurches are nondenominational.

The majority (66 percent) of megachurches are denominational in connection, although, whether because of their nondescript names or their styles of worship, many are not easily identified with these denominations. The most represented denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention, claiming 16 percent of America’s megachurches.

However, Megachurches Today suggests there is a subtle shift toward megachurches being nondenominational in affiliation, noting that “megachurches founded since 1991 are more likely to be nondenominational and less likely to describe their congregation as traditional, moderate, Pentecostal or charismatic.” Younger megachurches gravitate away from the use of labels in general—preferring the more general moniker of “evangelical.”

Warren Bird notes several exceptions to this rule.

“New Hope Fellowship, Honolulu, pastored by Wayne Cordeiro is an exception in that their literature and Website clearly proclaims their Foursquare connection. But even they didn’t put ‘Foursquare’ in their church name,” he points out. “Charismatic and Pentecostal churches tend not to play down their denominational connection too much, although some newer ones, such as Matthew Barnett’s Dream Center [www.dreamcenter.org] and Angelus Temple [www.angelustemple.org] in Los Angeles, are leaving the denominational connection out of their name.”

While it is clear that some megachurches downplay their denominational affiliation (the 2000 survey showed only a third said they expressed their denominational heritage very or quite well), very few changed affiliation (three percent in the last five years) or became independent (three percent since 2000).

They predict that, although a few churches may leave their denomination in the next few years, more will either drop the denominational label in favor of a more generic name, or form a quasi-denominational network of like minded churches. Twenty-two percent of megachurches have already done so. Further pointing to this trend toward independence, 37 percent of the megachurches surveyed say they helped plant at least one new congregation in the past five years.

“We are definitely seeing a renaissance of church planting by megachurches, both locally and internationally,” notes Leadership Network vice president, Dave Travis.

MythSix

Megachurches grow primarily because of great programming and transfer growth from other churches.

While some would argue these congregations just happened to sprout in the right place at the right time—or even embraced some form of compromise or “secret formula” to ensure growth, researchers note that such formulas don’t guarantee success:

“Almost none of the many evangelistic programs and efforts (such as advertising, creating recruitment plans, sponsoring visitor events, contacting persons new to the community or actually contacting persons after they visited the church) we tested had a strong influence on the variable growth rates of these megachurches.” Instead, they cite spiritual vitality, adaptation to change, clear mission, youthfulness of the congregation and the tendency of megachurch congregants to tell others about their experiences at church. (They also noted the use of electric guitars and drums is also a factor.)

The common denominator among the fastest-growing megachurches is the extent at which members are involved in recruiting new members. 64.7 percent of those churches that experienced more than 100 percent growth in the last five years say that a lot of their members were “heavily involved.”

But are these new congregants being stolen from less dominant and successful churches? Some are.

“The transfers that come from other local churches typically come from churches of all sizes, big and small,” Bird notes. “When a church grows past about 400 in attendance, it often becomes what [church-growth consultant] Carl George calls a ‘feeder-receptor’ church. That is, whether it likes it or not, it becomes a magnet for transfer growth because it usually sports the biggest youth group around or the most ‘happening’ singles group around. As a result, the larger a church grows, the more intentional it has to be about reaching lost and unchurched people; otherwise the transfer-growth factor can be awkwardly high.”

Travis cites reasons people will transfer to a megachurch (e.g., major life change, church strife in the previous church attended, attendance of other family members—even if one is not thrilled with the music) and reasons they never would leave to attend a megachurch (e.g., membership and active participation at the same congregation for more than 10 years, regular giving, deep affection for the fellow attendees and leaders, satisfaction with one’s spiritual growth and the likelihood that your children and grandchildren would not want to attend this same congregation.)

“Most church transfers occur because people have opted out of their previous church, and no one chased after them,” Travis notes. “It was dropping out and then eventually reconnecting with another church at a later time.”

Additionally, dramatic growth can be connected with senior pastoral leadership: 83 percent of churches tracked their most dramatic growth during the tenure of the current senior pastor.

Perhaps less predictable is the connection between the senior pastor’s education and the rate of growth. Megachurch pastors are generally more highly-educated than pastors in smaller churches. Thirty-five percent possess a D.Min. or Ph.D., and only eight percent have not completed a college degree.

However, the study noted that “as the education levels of pastors decrease, the rates of growth of these churches increase. … It raises interesting questions about the mentoring of young pastors and the role of seminaries in producing clergy to fill these very large congregations.”

“Today’s culture values leaders who are proven doers more than leaders with appropriate educational credentials,” Dave Travis notes. “If a pastor can preach and lead in credible ways, and is a lifelong learner, most folks don’t care about titles or level of formal education.”

Thumma points out this phenomenon may coincide with the prevalence of nondenominational megachurches—many of which do not have educational requirements for their pastors.

“These pastors do not have a pattern of going to seminary,” he notes. “They’re much more likely to become a pastor through mentoring with another megachurch pastor—their real training is at the feet of their fathers.”

So, what does the future hold for America’s megachurches? Experts point to an increasing interest in church planting, as well as a growing commitment to education and leadership training—particularly in the customized and resource-rich environment that a megachurch affords.

“An increasing number of megachurches are training the next generation of pastors,” Bird notes, citing The Vineyard Columbus [www.vineyardcolumbus.org], a congregation that houses Vineyard Leadership Institute, a center responsible for training Vineyard pastors across the country. “Some become an extension site for a seminary, while others become their own program.”

Ultimately, as Thumma notes, megachurches are a product of their times. The urbanization and customization of American culture that has provided a fertile environment for Wal-Mart and the Internet has also been a nursery for our largest churches.

“There’s a tendency to think of megachurches as a unique phenomenon—a result of God’s blessing or revival. This is a religious interpretation of what I see as a social phenomenon,” he says. “But we should also be exploring how megachurches reflect and represent what’s going on in culture and society in general.”

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
May/June 2006

From a Baltimore ghetto to Capitol Hill, Senate Chaplain Barry Black now serves as pastor to 100 of America’s most powerful elected officials.

He’s paid with your tax dollars and authorized by the Constitution to serve as a spiritual adviser to the members of the United States Senate. From his office in the north side of the Capitol building, Senate Chaplain Barry Black composes opening prayers for each day’s Senate proceedings, prepares five Bible studies a week, and meets with politicians of every stripe to council them on ethics, marriage, spirituality … and their relationship with their most important Constituent: God.

The first African American, the first military chaplain and the first Seventh-day Adventist to serve in his position, Black is well aware of the uniqueness of his role. But he’s more convinced than ever that it is God-not the Constitution-that has created a place for him in Washington, D.C.

While she was pregnant with Barry, his mother was baptized and asked God for a special anointing on her unborn child. The results were tangible. “I have never had another rival in my affections as far as my vocation,” Black explains. “I have always wanted to be a minister.”

Being reared in an impoverished-and virtually fatherless-family in a Baltimore ghetto, Black’s chances for vocational ministry seemed slim to none. But his mother daily wove Scripture into the lives of Black and his siblings, offering them a nickel for every Bible verse they memorized. One of these verses may have saved his life.

Black vividly recalls the day his mother assigned him Proverbs 1:10: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” Hours later, two neighborhood friends invited the 14-year-old Black to join them in “getting back at” a mutual acquaintance. Remembering the verse, Black declined, and the boys left. Later, he learned that the boys were involved in a murder, and both went to prison for life.

In retrospect, one could say that many events in Black’s life have pointed to his most recent assignment. When he was only 8 years old, his mother gave him a recording of Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall’s message “Were You There?” He listened to it until he could recite it from memory. Even now, nearly five decades later, he is able to deliver the sermon, complete with a convincing version of Marshall’s Scottish brogue.

After college and seminary, Black pastored several churches and was commissioned as a Navy chaplain in 1976. He had been promoted to the rank of rear admiral, was serving as chief of the Navy chaplains and was preparing for retirement in 2003 when he was invited to interview for the Senate chaplaincy.

Dressed in a crisp civilian suit and a studious bow tie, Black’s demeanor still reflects the military precision of his Navy days. He rises at 5 a.m., works out, spends time in devotions and uses his 45-minute commute to listen to Scripture on CD. The average week is a whirlwind of invocations, counseling sessions, Bible studies and speaking engagements.

Black serves not only the 100 senators and their families but also the 16,000 staff members that work on the Senate side of Capitol Hill. His daily responsibilities rival that of a megachurch pastor-with one notable exception.

“I have the opportunity of being involved with my members at a level that the average pastor cannot,” he says. “I see people on their jobs.”

This level of engagement has given Black a bird’s-eye view of the spiritual climate in the nation’s capital-a perspective that tends to be overlooked by the mainstream media. Recently, Chaplain Black sat down with Ministries Today to tell us how God is bringing spiritual renewal to the most unlikely of places-and what values should shape the church’s involvement in national transformation.

Ministries Today: How does your role fit into the constitutional understanding of “separation of church and state”?

Senate Chaplain Barry Black: The Senate chaplaincy is a nonpartisan responsibility. The congressional chaplaincies were created in 1789 and were established three days before the establishment clause of the Constitution. We know that by the very fact that there was a chaplaincy when that was written, the intention of our founders was not to pull religion completely outside of government activities.

I like to say there’s a separation of church and state-a phrase that does not occur in the Constitution-but not a separation of God and state. So, I’m very, very comfortable being who I am as a spiritual person and meeting the spiritual needs of people on Capitol Hill, as best I can, bringing something of the transcendent into this very important environment. Capitol Hill is one place where you need God.

Ministries Today: What are some signs of spiritual interest that you are seeing in the Capitol?

Black: I’ve seen evidence of what Paul called “saints in Caesar’s household.” We can get as many as 200 people at our plenary Bible studies. That’s an amazing number of people who regularly gather to study the Word of God.

This study has an amazing level of biblical literacy. I can start in any verse and these so-called ordinary people can tell me chapter and verse. A significant number of senators attend the prayer breakfast-as well as the Bible study. A significant number of spouses and chiefs of staff attend the Bible studies I lead for them.

Ministries Today: What do you think is behind this interest?

Black: These are challenging times. We’ve had to evacuate the Capitol a couple of times just in the last three months because of airplanes entering prohibited airspace. The news we hear from around the world is enough to make people more vulnerable to the things of the Spirit-to seek answers from someone bigger than any human being.

Ministries Today: What are some misperceptions people have about the spirituality of their elected officials?

Black: One misperception is that people who debate certain issues inside the chamber cannot be friends and spiritual brothers and sisters outside the chamber. People here are seeking after God in the same way that people outside of Capitol Hill are seeking God. Also, very few would know about the people who come into this office, and seek me out because they are wrestling with spiritual and theological issues.

Ministries Today: It sounds like your role is something of an ethical coach to our lawmakers?

Black: Well, I talk to them about ethical conundrums-a “right versus right” challenge. It is what the apostle Paul talked about when he referred to proving “what is excellent”-choosing better over good. They involve decisions of truth versus loyalty, the individual versus the community, long term versus short term and justice versus mercy. And the reasons may differ, but I encourage them to have an ethical foundation to reach their decisions. Former Senate Chaplain Lloyd John Ogilvie used to tell the senators: “You have one constituency: God. If you please Him, everything else works out.”

Ministries Today: So, you would argue that the gospel-and your role-is not out of place on Capitol Hill?

Black: Good news is as needed on Capitol Hill as anywhere. Moreover, many of the challenges we face today are analogous to those faced by Nebuchadnezzar. There’s a sense of foreboding, but we can’t remember the dream. There are many wise men who can give you the interpretation of a dream that you can remember, but who are powerless when revelatory knowledge is needed.

I think we face challenges as a nation-and as a planet-that create this sense of foreboding. We need supernatural wisdom, supernatural guidance. Our leaders need a wisdom the world can’t give them. It’s time for people who know the Lord to connect with Him in such a way that He can impart the desperately needed wisdom that can make the difference for a nation.

Ministries Today: You use the word “revelatory.” Do you see God speaking through people today-not just through His Word?

Black: The Scriptures are not some static verbiage encased in the cannon. They’re alive, as 2 Timothy 3:16 says. So, we do not so much search the Scriptures, as the Scriptures search us. Not a day goes by that I do not receive a rhema word from God. If I depend on what I read a couple of days ago, that’s like trying to save the manna. It just doesn’t work that way.

I believe God speaks in the here and now. Joel prophesied, “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” I think we’re in that time.

Ministries Today: Speaking of prophecy, Ugandan pastor Jackson Senyonga prophesied over you about renewal in Washington, D.C. Can you tell us about that?

Black: The week before he came, the Lord had laid on my heart Psalm 2:8, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Jackson came and said, “God sent me here with a word for you, and He told me to tell you to ask Him for the nations.”

It was a validation of the rhema word God had laid on my heart. It kept reverberating in the corridors of my spirit, and he and I discussed how this could happen based on what had happened in Uganda. He laid out a step-by-step blueprint of a necessary process of the realization of the vision. It was one of a number of prophetic visits I’ve received.

Ministries Today: So, would you consider yourself a charismatic?

Black: I would call myself a theological eclectic. I read through the Bible three or four times a year, and I listen to CDs of Scripture. I deliberately drive to work in an hour-and-a-half round trip where I’m in the Word just hearing it and letting it move through me.

What happens when you immerse yourself in the Word is that you break out of labels, you become a moving target. There’s a flexibility and a breadth and a lack of strictures to the religion of Jesus Christ. That same freedom manifests itself in terms of our theological stances. The moment you can put something in concrete, you’re headed for a problem. You need to always be open to a move of God, a fresh word from the Lord.

Ministries Today: Is there any hope of the Christian “right” and the Christian “left” coming together?

Black: The focus of left and right should be to get back to basics. We’ve become too smart for our own good. When the Magi came to Herod, they called in the theologians. They came in extremely knowledgeable. They knew where He was to be born, but they did not have the spiritual wisdom to walk the five miles and worship Him. You need more than information. The wise men did not have the information, they had an experience. They were following a star. The ones with the cerebral advantage did not take advantage of it.

My feeling is that what’s up here [pointing to head] is minor compared to what’s down here [pointing to his heart]. I’ll take a rough Elijah who’s looking about the political scene and saying: “God, now they’re saying that Baal is the one who sends the rain. Show Yourself strong. Stand up and do something.”

James 5 says, “One man, just like us, shut up the heavens for three-and-one-half years.” That’s what we need in our pulpits. That’s what we need in our churches. That’s what we need in our legislative and executive branch.

Ministries Today: So, you would argue that our problems are primarily spiritual, not political?

Black: More will be accomplished by wielding spiritual weapons and practicing the disciplines of fasting, praying and falling on our faces before the Lord than will ever be achieved by working behind the scenes to see if this or that will happen.

The heart of the king is in the Lord’s hands. He turns it whichever way He wants to. So, to become preoccupied with who’s in the executive branch, who’s in the judicial branch, who’s in the legislative branch is majoring on minors. There is a power beyond anything that these folk can do. God can have Nebuchadnezzar eating grass tomorrow.

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
Nov/Dec 2005

Whether independent or denominational, today’s church leaders are learning-sometimes the hard way-that reform doesn’t come easy.

Houston Miles had his feet firmly planted in the Assemblies of God (AG). He started his first church in 1949, pastored several congregations in Florida and served terms as youth and Sunday school director for the West Florida District.

Then, in 1971, while pastoring First Assembly of God in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a revival disturbed his Pentecostal sensibilities, and he found himself ministering with (and to) Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists. Although Miles’ church grew like a weed, he soon attracted the suspicion of fellow AG pastors, who frowned upon his ecumenical tendencies, openness to the charismatic movement and interest in new models of ministry.

“I became a black sheep in the AG,” he recalls. “Because we had such large numbers of people, they thought we were compromising with the world.” Miles found himself avoiding his jealous colleagues, and soon the affiliation with the AG became “on paper only.” Not too long after, he resigned his credentials. In the years since, relationships have been mended, apologies have been exchanged and the denomination has invited Miles to return whenever he wishes. But he has no plans to do so.

After his departure from the AG, Miles founded Evangel Fellowship International (EFI), a network of more than 600 churches in the United States, 672 in Russia and 35 missionaries overseas. EFI’s doctrinal statement is essentially Pentecostal, but local assemblies are autonomous, and pastors appoint their own boards and leadership from within the congregation.

Fast forward three decades …
Another pastor, Ron Johnson, leads Bethel Temple (AG), a megachurch in Hampton, Virginia. He is loyal to the Assemblies of God, but Johnson’s style of ministry is decidedly apostolic. He personally leads a network of more than 800 churches, plants an average of two new congregations per year and has pastors nationwide who look to him for oversight-all activities that have historically caused tension in some denominations that require approval to plant churches and credential ministers. Although he says he would jettison his affiliation with the denomination if it ever began to hamper his mission, Johnson has no plans of doing so and has been refreshed by signs of reform within the AG.

Sure, Johnson’s independence may seem incompatible with denominational structure, and some of his friends in the apostolic movement may suggest he should have abandoned the “old wineskins” of the AG long ago. But he’s not going anywhere. And the denomination is just fine with that.

Johnson admits that his relationship with AG colleagues has been tense at times, but a humble attitude combined with the common goals of church planting and leadership training have served to bring the two parties together when there’s been a potential for discord.

“I believe it is my responsibility to do the best I can to work with them,” he explains. “But if we reach a point that we no longer have the grace to walk together and we’re going to be at war, it’s better for me to graciously-with dignity-step out of the denomination rather than create strife.”

Conventional wisdom suggests that institutional structures grow more rigid with time. But in recent years some of the most innovative pastors in America have decided to stay in their denominations. Ministries Today sat down with a few of these leaders, and others who have left, in an attempt to explore what factors are bringing about denominational transformation-and where reform is still needed.

Visionary Leadership

Few dynamics are changing the face of denominations more dramatically than the prevalence of megachurches. The visionary-and often independent-style of ministry common among megachurch pastors sometimes runs counter to the conformity common in denominations.

“Megachurches are more often than not the product of one highly gifted spiritual leader,” writes megachurch expert Scott Thumma in “Exploring the Megachurch Phenomenon,” an article adapted from his doctoral dissertation on the subject. “The majority of contemporary megachurches were either founded by or achieved mega-status within the tenure of a single senior minister.”

With the growth of the megachurch phenomenon (In 1994, researcher John Vaughan estimated that the number of megachurches increases by 5 percent per year), it is only natural that denominations will feel the pressure from highly successful leaders within their ranks. While some megachurch pastors have left denominations, others have decided to stay and use their influence to effect institutional change.

Ron Carpenter was not even 30 years old, and he was already frustrated with the size of his church. In the seven years since its founding, Redemption World Outreach Center (RWOC) in Greenville, South Carolina, had grown to 400 members. By 1998, it had reached a plateau, but the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) pastor knew God had bigger things in mind.

After a yearlong study of the New Testament church, Carpenter dismantled every committee and stripped every leader’s title, rebuilding the structure of the church from the ground up and exchanging the congregation’s democratic system of government for “apostolic protocol.” Within six months, the church’s attendance had tripled to 1,200 … and it has not stopped since.

Now, with 5,000 members, RWOC is the largest congregation in the denomination, and Carpenter leads some 600 ministers who call him “apostle” and have no formal affiliation with the IPHC.

Carpenter rejects the notion that God is through using denominations. He encourages other visionary pastors to humble themselves and dialogue with denominational leaders-but ultimately listen to the voice of God. While it’s not without its tension, this pattern appears to be slowly bringing reform to some denominational structures.

“I have gone all over the IPHC speaking on this topic and have been met with far more passion to change than with resistance,” he says. “Denominations have tremendous resources, so I struggle with some peoples’ suggestion that none of it is beneficial. If there’s a possibility of change, why go back and recreate all these resources when they could be channeled?”

Ron Johnson agrees, noting that many pastors who feel they’ve outgrown their denomination tend to foster an internal prejudice toward institutional structures and assume that denominational leaders do not share their drive for evangelism and church planting.

“Many times denominational leaders are perceived as wanting to build the denomination as opposed to advancing the cause of Christ,” Johnson explains. “But from what I’ve experienced, the passion of our general superintendent is to embrace the work of the Spirit. He will do anything in his power to see men hear God and obey Him.”

Johnson recognizes that some visionary leaders may never fit into a denomination-and that this may be God’s will. But overall, he urges those contemplating leaving their denominations to exercise caution.

“Move slowly. Stay as long as you can, but no longer than you have the grace to do so,” he says. “When you leave, don’t trash your denomination; bless them.”

Localized Authority

Most denominations are led by people who were elected to their positions by their constituency. Critics argue that a democratic style of government reflects Western political styles, but has little to do with the way authority and responsibility are apportioned in the kingdom of God. As a result, emerging leaders are pushing denominations toward allowing more local autonomy and allowing visionary pastors to lead their congregations based on the direction they feel God has given them for their churches.

“The democratic system has bred distrust of people,” Ron Carpenter explains. “Democracy has worked for America with some measure of success, but the church was never meant to be a people-controlled movement.”

Instead, Carpenter advocates church leadership based on the authority of apostles and prophets who receive mandates directly from the Spirit. This view runs counter to many denominational structures, in which the pastor functions as an employee of the local church-subject to the whims of the elder board and the congregation.

New apostolic styles of church government reverse the model held by many denominations: Power within the church is taken from congregations and placed in the hands of pastors. Additionally, regional church authority is taken out of the hands of centralized denominations and placed in the hands of apostles who oversee networks of pastors.

This flexibility and autonomy is what led Joseph Thompson to avoid denominational affiliation in the first place. After serving as teaching pastor under Ted Haggard at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Thompson is planting a new congregation (Church at the Well) in the Orlando, Florida, area.

Before he made plans to relocate to Florida, Thompson was invited to pastor a denominational church but grew concerned by what he saw as the restrictive leadership structure in the local congregation.

“The bylaws said that the pastor is an employee of the board,” Thompson recalls. “That’s strange to me. That means if two-thirds of them suddenly decide they don’t like the way the pastor has preached for the last two Sundays, they can kick him out. I don’t think that’s healthy. I don’t think it gives the pastor liberty to hear the voice of God and be honest.”

While this dynamic may be common in denominations operating with a congregational form of church government, for those with episcopal bylaws, this is less of a challenge. For instance, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (ICFG) fills vacant pulpits, and pastors are allowed to appoint their own elders.

Twenty-one years ago, Daniel Brown planted The Coastlands, a Foursquare church in Aptos, California. Since then, he has pioneered 34 daughter churches and supplied five pulpits with ministers raised up in the church. Brown goes so far as to call the Foursquare a “pastors denomination,” stressing the liberty and autonomy that the fellowship offers its pastors.

Some denominations are making adjustments to ensure that this is the exception, not the rule. ICFG president Jack Hayford points out that three years ago, the denomination revised its structure, placing more authority in the hands of leading pastors rather than denominationally structured regional offices. Leadership was distributed among 75 supervisors, whereas before the shift there had only been 9. Although he refers to the new structure as “apostolic,” Hayford is careful in describing the motivation that initiated it.

“This was not done as an attempt to answer the criticisms of some who seem impassioned with identifying and investing apostles and prophets as a crusade of sorts,” he explains. “Rather, it was simply done in response to the Holy Spirit’s work in fashioning a movement to serve its expanding future.”

But for some, changes such as these are too little, too late. Some say the problems with denominations are irreparable; they are deeply embedded in the DNA of institutionalized religion in America.

Church-growth expert C. Peter Wagner was optimistic as he observed the charismatic renewal of the ’60s and ’70s. The wind of the Holy Spirit began to blow through the dusty halls of mainline denominations that were already experiencing symptoms of irrelevance and decay.

But by 2000, as Wagner writes in his 2004 book Changing Church, “not one of the U.S. denominations had experienced the spiritual reformation that leaders had been praying for. … Yes, many individuals and some congregations had been spiritually transformed, but the structures at best had remained the same, and in some cases they had deteriorated even more.”

Wagner blames this phenomenon not on people, but on structures-structures that worked 300 years ago when denominations became independent of state control but that have become almost as rigid as the institutions they replaced.

For him, the solution is no longer renewal, but reformation. As early as his 2000 book, The New Apostolic Churches, Wagner noted that the most thriving churches worldwide are not denominational in structure-even if they are affiliated with one. They are apostolic, structured around the Spirit-led leadership of one man or woman. As a result, Wagner argues that those truly wanting to participate in the next move of God will need to leave their denominations.

“The old wineskins were once bright shining new wineskins,” Wagner explained in a recent interview with Ministries Today. “But they have come under a spell or domination of the spirit of religion-a spell that causes them to think that maintaining the status quo is the will of God. Those who stay in denominations will not receive new wine.”

Relational Accountability

Many, like Houston Miles, suggest that accountability has become obsolete within denominations, that they have grown beyond their capacity to relationally connect leaders with grass-roots ministers.

“In the AG, the superintendent was more of an administrator than a pastor,” he notes. “The only time you’d hear from him is if you got behind on your tithe.” As this yawning relational gap is becoming more pronounced, alternative organizations are arising to provide networking and resources for leaders inside and outside denominations.

Joseph Thompson affiliates with several networks-Association of Life-Giving Churches, founded by Ted Haggard, and Association of Related Churches, an organization of pastors committed to church planting. Like many of their nondenominational counterparts, both are organized around a function (healthy congregational ministry and church planting) rather than a doctrinal statement or a structure of leadership and control.

As a result, neither organization exerts any control over its members in regard to accountability. Instead, they assume a certain level of pre-existent accountability of their members-many of whom are already affiliated with denominations and apostolic networks-Thompson says.

“They recognize the need to have people over you,” he explains. “But that’s not what they exist for. They provide a context for horizontal accountability-an opportunity to voluntarily submit yourself to accountability with your peers.”

Some of these networks are even being launched by denominational pastors who wish to combine the resources offered by their denominations with the flexibility and specialization offered by a smaller organization.

Scott Hagan resigned in May as pastor of First Assembly of God in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Known for his passion for racial reconciliation, Hagan recently launched the Blended Church Network, an organization dedicated to training and connecting leaders to plant multiethnic churches.

Although Hagan’s new network carries the enthusiastic blessing of AG officials, it is intended to be a cross-denominational effort that will train leaders of any stripe. The 42-year-old pastor believes that efforts such as his reflect a growing openness in his denomination toward entrepreneurial churchplanting, apostolic leadership and the cultivation of relationships outside denominational boundaries.

“Any time we begin acquiring land, building buildings, creating salaries and careers, there will come a time for reinvention,” Hagan explains. “I believe that this is a journey back to the simplicity of our purpose.”

For many, peer-level networks such as Hagan’s hold an advantage to denominations. They are not centered on a doctrinal distinctive, nor do they have top-heavy infrastructures that demand financial support. They are primarily relational in nature-and led by people who have ministries of their own.

Although he is encouraged by the various networks-apostolic and otherwise-that are sprouting for the purpose of church planting, evangelism, and so on, C. Peter Wagner is concerned that people leaving denominations will find camaraderie but ultimately avoid authentic accountability to a spiritual father or mother.

“There are still too many people out there doing their own thing,” he says. “Everyone needs apostolic oversight. But accountability is voluntary, and you can avoid it whether you’re in a denomination or an apostolic network.”

He also contends that even the most flexible and forward-thinking apostolic network of today can become a denomination tomorrow, if policies are not put in place to prevent institutionalism.

“What we want to avoid is apostles who are ‘pre-denominational,’” he explains. “Sociologists of religion tell us that this is not only possible, it is inevitable. But I want to be a history changer. History does not have to repeat itself.”

Generational Transition

Denominations tend to be led by those who have proven themselves in ministry. While this lends stability and credibility, it creates an environment for generational tension between emerging and established leaders.

As Ron Johnson notes, it’s increasingly problematic when a younger generation comes on the scene with new ideas-and a completely different view of institutional loyalty. Postmodern leaders sometimes have little tolerance for what they perceive as the faceless reality of 20th-century denominations.

“We’re dealing in the AG with leaders that are 60-plus years of age at the top level of leadership,” Johnson explains. “When these older leaders and their postmodern counterparts talk about ‘relationship,’ they’re not talking about the same thing.”

Johnson points out that-ironically-a younger generation craves fatherly mentoring. Isolation and independence are not in their vocabulary, but they question whether denominational structures can provide the relational guidance that they desire. Unlike their forbears, they have nothing against leaving a denomination to find it. Ron Carpenter agrees.

“My daddy’s generation would be loyal to the church if God died,” he says jokingly. “In contrast, my generation will not be faithful to a denomination … but they will die for a man.”

Stenneth Powell, pastor of Abundant Life Christian Center Church of God in Christ (COGIC), in Raleigh, North Carolina, has raised up 49 ministers-many of whom hold credentials with COGIC, but look to him for spiritual oversight. Powell notes that younger pastors are not only looking for leadership, they also want resources-church-growth advice, leadership mentoring and church-management skills. The growth of large churches has provided opportunities for young leaders to connect with successful models-outside the confines of denominational institutions.

“This frustration with denominations is cyclical. Pastors get successful-too big for their own denominations-so they start their own organization. Essentially that too becomes a denomination,” he explains. “If a big church can offer a young guy who’s just starting out the same resources as a denomination, he’ll join that organization.”

Many, like Scott Hagan, believe that these generational shifts may ultimately seal denominations’ survival-if leaders take the opportunity to harness enthusiasm and listen to the concerns of their younger colleagues.

“Our AG colleges are packed with students-black, white, brown, male female-whom the denomination has to keep if we have any hope,” he explains. “We can’t draw in these kids and slam them with old-school thinking. The spirit that these young people have must start permeating the entire movement.”

This challenge is not exclusive to denominations.

Senior pastor of Covenant Centre International in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Norman Benz left the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) in 1991. He explains that he heard God say, “What I want to do with you I can’t do with you in this denomination.”

Since then he joined International Coalition of Apostles (ICA), founded by C. Peter Wagner. But he points out that the apostolic movement is in danger of being largely a “baby boomer” movement and stresses the importance of incorporating younger leaders. One of the priorities of his own organization, Covenant Apostolic Network, is to intentionally release the next generation.

“When we look at scripture, apostles and elders were not necessarily chosen because of their age, but because of the favor of the Spirit on them,” he explains. “We have to be careful that we don’t become stalemated and segmented into becoming a certain kind of a movement because of the age of our leaders.”

A Return to Pentecost

Although these tensions would appear to chip away at denominational foundations, many argue that such shifts actually indicate a return to the values that launched the Pentecostal and charismatic movements nearly a century ago. Ron Carpenter points out that Pentecostals and charismatics should-by nature-be more ready for denominational reform, noting that he has encountered extensive openness among leaders and laity in his own denomination.

“We tend to be spontaneous and flexible,” he explains. “Also, most Pentecostals are biblically rooted enough that if you open the Word and explain these new ideas, they will accept them.”

Ron Johnson argues that many denominations were specifically formed for the purpose of church planting, world missions and raising up new leaders, but that a desire to preserve institutional identity and enforce conformity has sometimes trumped these concerns.

“Denominations serve a purpose in building the kingdom,” he says. “But if they lose the dynamic life of their inception, they automatically default to some other reason for existence-usually self-preservation.”

While denominational leaders have often recognized this problem, Johnson notes that they have not always been quick to offer a solution. But as he looks at the landscape of the church, two factors bring him hope: a rebirth in a commitment to missions and church planting and the rise of a generation that values relationships over structure.

“Contrary to the perception that all they want to do is build their denomination, most leaders want to build the kingdom,” he explains. “As long as denominations will effectively communicate that they are releasing and empowering people to do this as well, they will grow.”

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
Sep/Oct 2005

These two pastors have a strategy for shutting down the smut industry: convert its customers one by one.

When Craig Gross and Mike Foster visit pornography trade shows, they usually walk past picketers holding signs protesting the events. But the co-founders of XXXchurch.com are there for a different reason: to reach porn addicts, smut purveyors and the women who are exploited by this $13 billion-a-year industry.

Once inside, they and their wives set up a 10-foot square booth, where they share Christ, give away free Bibles and Internet screening software they developed (X3Watch-now with 170,000 users), and challenge visitors to take the Seven-Day Porn Challenge-to go a week without viewing erotic material. While they minister, friends at home fast and pray for their spiritual protection-and keep them accountable when they come home.

“Both Craig and I are aware that this is a very volatile issue,” Foster explains. “We don’t want to be another statistic on the charts of people who have crashed and burned in their ministry-asking people to do one thing, but not even living it ourselves. That’s just par for the course, whether it’s porn ministry or pastoring a church.”

Gross and Foster have visited six such trade shows since founding XXX church.com in January of 2002, but the majority of their ministry time is spent speaking at youth and pastor’s conferences, raising awareness in churches and building relationships with people in the porn industry.

“Pornographers recognize that we’re not a good thing for their industry,” Foster says. “But because we have a relationship with them, and they see the consistency of our message, it’s difficult for them to hate us.”

While serving in pastoral ministry before launching XXXchurch.com, Gross and Foster came to the realization that one way they could make a dent in the porn industry was not to lobby for laws against it, but to get people to stop consuming it.

“Because it has no outward symptoms like alcoholism or drug abuse, we tend to overlook just how many people are involved,” Gross says. “The Internet has taken pornography out of the seedy part of town and made it accessible in our homes.”

XXXchurch.com has gained the respect of ministers from Billy Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, to Rob Bell, who leads Mars Hill Bible Church, a large congregation in Grandville, Mich.-not to mention the attention of news outlets from Wired magazine to ABC’s Good Morning America.

Their ministry is not without its detractors. XXXchurch.com features a page full of hate mail-most of it from Christians who find their tactics too extreme. But Gross and Foster are unfazed-and point out that 16 percent of those who visit the site find it while surfing for porn. They say they have adopted their philosophy of ministry from Jesus Himself.

“We’re trying to reach people who would never go to church,” Gross explains. “It would take us two weeks at church to do what we can do in five minutes at a porn show.”

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine

Jeanne Mayo is 55, married, a mother of two … and America’s most successful youth pastor.

SIDEBAR: VITAL STATS

WHO: Jeanne Mayo
AGE: 55
VOCATION: Youth Pastor, Assembly of God Tabernacle, Atlanta
SPOUSE: Sam Mayo, senior pastor, Assembly of God Tabernacle, Atlanta
CHILDREN: Josh (25) and Justin (23)–both in youth ministry
FOUNDER: Youth Source (www.youthsource.com)
HOST: National Youth Leaders Conference (www.nylc.net), a bi-coastal event drawing 3,000 + youth ministers and world-class speakers like Josh McDowell and Ron Luce.
ODDEST PREACHING PROP: Her mother’s casket–with the body inside. Message: Don’t wait ’til it’s too late to tell your parents you love them.
ODDEST PREACHING VENUE: A junkyard. Message: This is where everything you crave will end up. Invest eternally.
MEMORABLE MOMENT: A 25-year reunion in the summer of 2004 for 300 former members of Jeanne’s Bellevue, Nebraska, youth group–complete with children and grandchildren.

She’s part stand-up comic, part mom, part tent evangelist–a middle-aged pastor’s wife with blonde hair and Southern charm. (Don’t be surprised if she calls you “doll” in the first 10 minutes of meeting her.)

From her style to her methodology, Jeanne Mayo defies convention. Sure, kids think she’s cool, but not earringed, tattooed, loud music cool. In fact, she’s known for the high expectations she places on youth and lay leaders alike.

And the results speak for themselves: Since entering youth ministry 35 years ago, Jeanne has grown youth groups to more than 1,000 in churches in Georgia, Nebraska, Illinois and California. Her passion for reaching students and training them for radical discipleship has rubbed off on a legion of youth pastors who consider Jeanne the godmother of youth ministry.

But the question on most people’s minds may be, How did a 55-year-old woman grow youth groups from handfuls to hundreds and become respected as the most successful youth pastor in the nation?

“Hard work,” she says. That’s often the missing ingredient, but it’s the one that brings success in youth ministry–even for those who are inexperienced, unqualified and “uncool.” Jeanne’s seen her share of hip youth pastors who look sharp, talk a good game–even have a Bible college degree. But they can’t hold a candle to the plodder who’s willing to love the unlovable and invest the time and creativity that youth ministry demands.

As newlyweds, Jeanne and her husband, Sam, started in ministry in Atlanta, at the Assemblies of God church pastored by Sam’s father. There, Jeanne was paid less than $45 per week to lead the youth ministry, and, within three years, had grown the group from fewer than 20 to several hundred.

The couple moved from Atlanta to Bellevue, Nebraska. When they left the church after 15 years of ministry there, the congregation numbered 1,200, with a youth group of 500 and a school with 400 students.

Jeanne’s uncanny gifts in youth ministry became widely known soon after she and Sam took the pastorate of First Assembly in Rockford, Illinois. For 13 years, Jeanne was tireless in her efforts to train lay leaders and create an environment for growth, building one of the largest youth groups in the country.

By the time the couple left the church to accept a position in Sacramento, California, the youth group was running more than 1,000 and a Christian school (which Jeanne also led) had an enrollment of more than 1,500.

Her ability to revive youth groups was again demonstrated at Capital Christian Center, in Sacramento, where the couple served as staff pastors for a year before moving to Atlanta–and the church where they started in ministry 35 years ago.

“Oxygen,” the youth ministry Jeanne leads at Assembly of God Tabernacle in Atlanta had dwindled to the 20s when she arrived a year ago. Now it runs more than 200, thanks to a devoted network of lay volunteers and a thriving Master’s Commission franchise that she launched soon after arriving.

In a time when teens are often sidelined until they’re old enough not to embarrass their parents and church leaders, she is known for encouraging youth to accomplish great things for God–while they’re still young.

“I think I have the privilege of ministering to the generation that will usher in the return of Jesus,” Jeanne says. “If you study the major revivals, you see that they started with movers and shakers who were in their teens and 20s.”

She is convinced that this spiritual potential is locked in the DNA of youth itself–and it drives her entire philosophy of ministry and her expectations of those who serve under her. As a result, people she has mentored are known for their hard work, creativity and longevity in ministry. And they often find themselves in high demand from churches looking for youth pastors.

Frankie Mazzapica was a 19-year-old youth pastor at Triumph Church in Beaumont, Texas, when Jeanne visited his church and invited him to become an intern in her ministry in Rockford. Later, Mazzapica moved on to serve as senior-high youth pastor at the largest congregation in America–Lakewood Church in Houston, pastored by Joel Osteen. In December 2004 he left Lakewood to travel as an itinerant youth evangelist.

Mazzapica explains that Jeanne taught him to focus on the aspects of ministry “below the waterline,” such as prayer, relationships and servanthood. He also recalls her passion for “chasing,” as she calls it–pursuing unsaved people who she believes possess potential for leadership, bringing them to Christ, discipling them and then thrusting them into ministry.

“Youth was not made for pleasure,” Jeanne contends. “It was made for heroism.”

The problem, she explains, is that we’ve lowered our expectations of young people, assuming that they will be satisfied with fun and games. Nothing could be further from the truth, she argues.

“What if we challenged teens not to make Jesus an add-on to their lives, but to make Him everything?” she asks.

“Unfortunately, the church hasn’t had the guts to demand this type of commitment from people,” she laments. “If you make big demands, you get big sacrifices. If you make little demands, you get little sacrifices.”

In fact, it was Bridget Mergens, a girl from Jeanne’s youth group in Nebraska, who challenged a Nebraska school district to allow religious clubs in public schools–and was ultimately vindicated by the Supreme Court. The court’s interpretation of the Equal Access Act became precedent for future cases, and students from New York to Minnesota launched Bible clubs in their schools.

If the fact that their youth pastor is a 55-year-old woman is not enough to capture their attention, Jeanne is considered by colleagues in youth ministry to be a gold mine of inventive ideas that usually end up working.

“Jeanne Mayo is intensely aware of the issues facing youth today,” says youth evangelist Josh McDowell. “She is personally involved in kids’ lives and is a loving friend to each and every student. I’m continually impressed by Jeanne’s vision for the future and her practical strategies for reaching young people.”

These “strategies” are often anything but conventional. She may not be the first youth pastor to use a casket in a sermon illustration. But she’s probably the first to do so with a casket containing the body of her own mother–the night before the funeral, no less.

The message? “Someday, you’re going to walk past the casket of your mom or dad,” Jeanne told an audience of stunned teens. “Like me, you won’t have time to go back and say you’re sorry, to give them the words of love and appreciation.”

Another time, she loaded the entire youth group into buses and took them to a junkyard, where they sat on piles of tires and rusty cars as she preached.

“Sooner or later, everything you’ve been craving in life is going to end up here,” she said. “This is the stuff that you’re being tempted to barter your eternal destiny for. The only thing that will last is relationships–with Jesus and with those who honor Him.”

Unfortunately, statistics would suggest that fewer teens than ever are pursuing a relationship with God. In 2000, pollster George Barna reported that only 1 out of 4 teens describe themselves as “committed Christians”–half the percentage found among adults. And compared to teens throughout the last 20 years, today’s youth have the lowest likelihood of attending church when they are living independent of their parents.

According to Jeanne, however, the crisis in youth ministry is not a lack in creativity or relevance–something many youth pastors have in surplus quantity. Instead, what irks her more than anything is the brevity of some youth pastors’ tenures and the tendency for youth ministry to be seen as a stepping stone to the senior pastorate.

It doesn’t help that numbers are often the primary means by which success is measured, she says, citing the first question that youth pastors often ask one another when they meet: “So, how many are you running … ?”

“We’re not really honest in ministry,” she argues. “We’re much better at telling our success stories than we are telling when our heads get beat in.”

This honesty is what has driven Jeanne to launch Youth Source (www.youthsource.com), a network of 1,000-plus youth pastors–both lay and full-time–who receive monthly CDs and newsletters encouraging them in their personal lives and offering them ideas for effective ministry.

To them her message is simple: “Work your guts out, pray your guts out, love their guts out.” Sure, it’s not the most glamorous proposition. But she’s convinced that success is more determined by your commitment and love for God than by whether you fit the mold of the 21st century youth pastor–if there even is one anymore. Jeanne broke it.

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
Mar/Apr 2005

Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have teamed up to equip pew-warming Christians for personal evangelism.

Ray Comfort is a contradiction of sorts. His diminutive 5-foot-5-inch frame disguises his uncanny boldness when confronting unbelievers with their need for Christ. And his whimsical demeanor conceals his dead-earnest seriousness as he tracks down sinners and confronts them with the claims of Christ.

It’s 7:30 a.m. when I meet Ray. He’s perched on a chair in his simple office, clad in jeans and short sleeves. A large print of the Titanic sinking is on one wall–reminding him of the plight of the lost. A cat is curled up under a chair. Ray kicks it across the room. I flinch. The cat is stuffed.

In the hallway, a small sign invites passers-by to look more closely. I do, and a rubber spider drops from the ceiling onto my shoulder. Elsewhere, a photo of Ray is tacked conspicuously close to the floorboards. A caption below the photo reads: “Stand up. I’m only human.”

Ray looks at his watch. It’s 7:45 a.m. and time to head across the street to the Bellflower branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Fifty people quietly wait in line outside the building. At 8 a.m., they will enter to face the judge, protesting traffic tickets and other offenses, both major and minor.

But for the next 15 minutes, they are a captive audience, so Ray gives each person a pamphlet with tips on what to do (and not do) when in the courtroom and launches into a simple presentation of the gospel.

“I don’t get paid for this. I don’t like doing this. I don’t want your money, nor am I going to ask you to join a church,” he says in a Kiwi accent still thick after 20 years in the United States. “I’m here today because I care about you and where you spend eternity, so please bear this in mind as you consider this issue.”

Ray explains the Law–God’s Law–and how everyone has broken it. “You need someone who can pay your fine,” he says. “That’s what Jesus did for you 2,000 years ago.”

Some ignore him. Some talk on cell phones. Most listen and take the CD he offers them as he leaves, and they file into the courthouse. The recording is What Hollywood Believes, an exploration of the faith of celebrities–or lack thereof.

Back in his office I ask him why he takes the time every morning to preach outside the courthouse.

“I have a moral obligation,” he replies. “Like a doctor with a cure for cancer. Every day I can think of 100 excuses for not going. But there’s one good reason why I should go: People are going to hell.”

A SOUL PURPOSE

Ray has trained himself well for the task. For years he’s had a standing offer: $1,000 for anyone who catches him without a tract. Someone once apprehended him coming out of a pool and demanded payment. Ray pulled a sodden tract out of his swimming trunks.

A few blocks from Living Waters Publications is Way of the Master (WOTM), a ministry Ray founded two years ago with actor Kirk Cameron, star of the long-running sitcom Growing Pains. On the way over to WOTM, Ray stops to chat with two women at a bus stop. They thank him for the tracts, and we’re on our way again.

While Living Waters publishes Ray’s tracts, books and evangelistic resources, WOTM produces a TV series and training course that won the National Religious Broadcasters’ People’s Choice Award in 2004. In its second season of production, the show is broadcast several times a week on Trinity Broadcasting Network, and its satellite and cable affiliates.

We sit down to watch a few clips from the show. It’s anything but typical of Christian TV programming. For one episode they rent the island of Alcatraz and film on location in the abandoned prison. In another, they take a chimpanzee to dine at an L.A. restaurant. In another, Ray and his team are repeatedly spat upon while street preaching in Jerusalem.

The goal of the program? “We want to equip Christians for personal evangelism,” Ray says. A statistic he repeatedly cites from The Coming Revival by Bill Bright, the late Campus Crusade for Christ founder, is that only 2 percent of believers share their faith.

Recalling his early efforts at soul-winning in his native New Zealand, Ray admits that he was motivated to share the gospel, but his results were less than stellar.

“I delivered ’stillborn babies’ [spiritually speaking] when I was younger,” he says. “I ran around to my surfing buddies and said: ‘Christianity’s better than surfing. Just give your heart to Jesus. Please say this prayer. It worked for me.’” Looking back, he points out that 27 of his 28 friends backslid.

It puts a damper on evangelistic enthusiasm when 95 percent of those who make professions of faith are never integrated into the church, Ray adds, noting a statistic cited by the Assemblies of God home-missions director, Charles Hackett.

“False converts.” That’s what Ray calls those who accept Christ for all the wrong reasons. And according to him, the church is to blame.

With his penchant for colorful analogies, Ray explains, “If we thrust people into the heat of modern warfare armed with a feather-duster, it’s no wonder that they’re fearful.” The “feather-duster,” he contends, is any method of evangelism that fails to awaken sinners to their desperate moral bankruptcy before a holy God and His Law.

Telling sinners anything less is withholding the truth, Ray contends, comparing it to the danger of informing a group of people trapped in a building that’s about to be bombed that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives. It’s just not true.

Before his conversion in 1972, Ray’s passions rarely stretched beyond catching a monster wave on the beaches of his native New Zealand. But surfing took a back seat when he became a believer, and within weeks of accepting Christ, Ray cranked out his first gospel tract on a primitive Gestetner–a treatise on the cause of racism (sin, not skin). Someone saw the tract, ordered 5,000 copies, and that was the beginning of a ministry that now prints 10 million tracts per year.

After his conversion, Ray assumed his passion for evangelism would be most welcome in the church, so he accepted a position as an associate pastor. But Ray admits that, during his 3-1/2 years of pastoral ministry he fit the role “like a round peg in a square hole.”

He found most church ministry mystifying. Why would people want to go to church for counseling, committee meetings and potlucks while all the sinners are outside the walls of the church?

“I abhor pastoring,” he says with a shudder. “It’s just not me. Some pastors will take a lamb in their arms and embrace it. I say: ‘Stand up. Reproduce. What’s your problem? Grow up, Lamb.’”

It was in 1982, after several years of relatively unsuccessful efforts at itinerant evangelism, that Ray found himself reading the sermons of Charles Spurgeon that describe in detail the Law’s purpose in bringing the sinner to a recognition of his or her need for salvation. He was even more convinced after reading Galatians 3:24: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (KJV).

After hearing Ray quote from memory an extended passage from one of Spurgeon’s messages, I have a sneaking suspicion that the mantle of the 19th-century British fireball has found a new home on the shoulders of this mustachioed street preacher.

I don’t think Spurgeon would be offended. In fact, in 1997, Ray got a call from someone who had just listened to his audio message Hell’s Best Kept Secret:

“I’m Charles Spurgeon’s great, great, great, great-grandson; and I got saved listening to your tape.”

Ray was skeptical–until Robert Alan Holm showed up in his office and displayed detailed genealogical papers identifying him as a direct descendant of Spurgeon.

“To me it was such an encouragement,” Ray says. “Obviously, Spurgeon prayed for his posterity.”

THE SECRET’S OUT

So, what is hell’s best-kept secret? For Ray, it’s the use of the Law in evangelism–a tool wielded by Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Charles Finney, John Newton, C.S. Lewis and John Bunyan.

But Ray believes that this tool has grown rusty with neglect, as more sinner-sensitive means of evangelism have become popular. The emotions and the intellect–instead of the conscience–are now the primary avenues of appealing to an unbeliever.

The results of this paradigm shift? Ray advocates a method of evangelism that rejects many of the popular accouterments of the sawdust trail: emotional altar music, sinners’ prayers, threats of hellfire and intellectual arguments.

His conversations with unbelievers begin something like this: “Michael, do you consider yourself a good person?” Usually the response is “yes,” and then Ray unfolds the Ten Commandments, describing God’s requirements of righteousness and humanity’s utter failure to meet those requirements:

“Have you ever looked at a woman with lust?” “Have you ever told a lie?” “Have you ever stolen something–even something very small?”

Most also answer “yes” to these questions.

Self-righteousness, Ray contends, is the greatest barrier to a person recognizing his or her need for forgiveness. And the Law offers the perfect antidote to awaken an unbeliever’s conscience and reveal that he or she is not, in fact, a good person.

Ray’s winsome manner and self-deprecating humor are enough to bring the sinner’s guard down, so that he doesn’t find himself with a blackened eye when he matter-of-factly breaks the bad news: “Michael, by your own admission, you’re a lying thief and an adulterer. Do you think that a just God should allow you into heaven?”

No debates about the existence of God. No wrangling over hypocrisy in the church. No arguments over starving children in Africa. The only question worth asking at this point is the most relevant one of all: What must I do to be saved?

If an unbeliever’s conscience is not pricked with the “bad news” of his or her sin, Ray sees no need to offer the “good news” of forgiveness or grace when a sinner doesn’t think he or she needs it.

Although Ray’s message is rooted in the Ten Commandments–a ubiquitous feature of his tracts, books and street messages–he contends that this emphasis is anything but legalistic.

“The Law is what makes grace make sense,” he says. “The more you realize your sin, the more you realize your need for grace.”

In 1989, a pastor in Southern California who heard his message on tape, called Ray and invited him to move to the United States and share Hell’s Best Kept Secret with a wider audience. Within days, Ray, his wife, daughter and two sons pulled up stakes and moved to Bellflower, California, where he began teaching his message in churches and preaching in Los Angeles’ notorious MacArthur Park.

News about Hell’s Best Kept Secret was primarily spread by word-of-mouth recommendations, until Institute in Basic Life Principles founder Bill Gothard heard the message and invited Ray to share it at a pastor’s conference. Soon after, Times Square Church pastor David Wilkerson was listening to the tape in his car and immediately called Ray and invited him to bring the message to his congregation in New York.

Since then, Ray has shared his Hell’s Best Kept Secret message 815 times in churches and conferences in 42 states and nine nations, as well as preaching outside the L.A. courthouse every morning he’s in town.

But it’s the uncomfortable three years in pastoral ministry that have given Ray a heart for awakening the church to evangelism–and the sensitivity to understand the challenges that pastors face.

“When I go into a local church, I realize that the pastor is virtually saying: ‘Here’s the keys to my car. You’re driving. I’m in the back with my family. Please stay on the right side of the road,’” he says. “It’s a great position of trust when the pastor lets me step up to his pulpit.”

Ray’s single-minded message has brought him a wide audience from nearly every denomination, and although he attends a Calvary Chapel church, he hesitates to focus on denominational distinctions or involve himself in doctrinal disputes.

“There are certain theological issues I don’t talk about because I know if I do, doors to certain churches will close for me,” he explains. “I have a nondenominational ministry, so I stay away from opinions on charismatic issues, Christian rock music, Calvinism, Arminianism, prophecy and so on.”

HITCHED TO A STAR

For several years, Living Waters Publications enjoyed a loyal following among street preachers and believers in the market for innovative tracts and evangelistic materials. But all that changed in 2001 when someone thrust a cassette recording of Hell’s Best Kept Secret into the hands of Growing Pains heartthrob Kirk Cameron while he was promoting Left Behind: The Movie.

After listening to the tape, Kirk was so intrigued that he called Ray to thank him for the message. The friendship that developed from that connection led to Ray advising Kirk and the producers of Left Behind’s sequel Tribulation Force to beef up the presentation of the gospel to include–you guessed it–the Ten Commandments. Sure enough, in sharp contrast to the more typical witnessing scenes in Left Behind, lines from the second film have an uncanny ring of Spurgeon to them.

In 2002, Kirk appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, mentioned Hell’s Best Kept Secret and Living Waters, and, within hours, Ray’s Web site had crashed with 71,000-plus hits. A short time later, the network agreed to let Kirk share the message again–and interview Ray. This time the Web server was ready for the 1 million hits that the program brought.

Today, Kirk admits that his first impressions of Ray were less than impressive when the two first met in an L.A. restaurant.

“He was this unassuming looking, little guy, cracking lots of corny jokes,” Kirk recalls. “I was thinking, ‘Yeah, just stick with theology, Pal.’” Ray handed tracts to every person in the restaurant, entertained the staff with a sleight of hand routine and flashed a fake ID with a photo of himself–complete with a forehead the size of a soccer ball. Ray’s message, however, Kirk found irresistible. “That day began a lot of conversations about ministry and the way to spread the gospel,” he says. “When I tried it for myself, I became convinced that what he was doing was absolutely effective–and I wanted to do everything I could to get this teaching to the church.”

Although Kirk was used to giving his testimony–both inside and outside the church–he had often found himself frustrated with the results.

“I would try to share my faith whenever the door would open,” he admits. “But it was easy to get discouraged, especially living in the culture that we do, which seems to be so antagonistic toward Christianity, absolute truth or the value of the Scriptures.”

Those conversations with Ray led to the creation of The Way of the Master, a show that wraps practical teaching on evangelism in a reality-TV format.

“We try to make the teaching extremely easy to understand and apply,” says Kirk, who fills the role–with Ray–of co-host and co-producer of the program. “The thing that makes it unique is that every true Christian has a desire to go out and be a witness for Jesus Christ, but most people are very afraid to actually do that.”

The two hosts teach on the nuts and bolts of personal evangelism, incorporating Scripture, church-growth statistics and quotes from Spurgeon, Whitefield and Bunyan. Then, the cameras take viewers to the street, where Ray, Kirk and others on their team engage unbelievers in conversation–and, ultimately, the message of the Law, grace and forgiveness.

The episode titles are engaging (for example, “Alcatraz, Al Capone and Alcohol,” “How to Witness to Someone Who’s Gay” and “True and False Conversion”) and tools for application abound. But the theology behind the program is anything but user friendly.

In fact, neither Ray nor Kirk have much time for “consumer Christianity”–as they call the current church milieu.

“Tastes great. Less filling.” That’s how Kirk describes much of modern church life, borrowing the familiar beer slogan. “Christianity has been tailored to suit the tastes of the modern churchgoer: shorter sermons, cooler music, no confrontation.”

The results are pews filled with people who rarely muster the courage to witness. And when they do, it’s often for the wrong reasons, he contends.

“Most people think: ‘I should share my faith. It’s my right. I should be able to say what I want. Stand up for myself,’” Kirk explains. “Really, motivation for evangelism should be the fate of the lost and gratitude for what Christ has done for us.” Whether passing out tracts on the street or sharing his faith with Hollywood celebrities, Kirk admits that–like everyone–he faces the dragons of fear and intimidation. But there’s always another nagging image that he cannot erase from his mind.

“When I look at the cross and see that Christ was left in bleeding shreds to save me, I’m so grateful,” he says. “The desire of my heart is to obey His greatest command–The Great Commission.”

SIDEBAR: W.D.J.D.

Four crucial questions every soul-winner must ask and every sinner must answer.

In a spin on the popular ’90s bracelet slogan “What Would Jesus Do?” Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have developed an easy-to-remember series of questions (based on the phrase “What did Jesus do?”) that can be used to lead a sinner to a realization of his or her need for forgiveness:

W – ­ Would you consider yourself to be a good person?

“Self-righteousness,” Ray says, “is the No. 1 problem we face in witnessing. People think God is their friend, when, in fact, the Bible says God is their enemy.”

D -­ Do you think that you have kept the Ten Commandments?

“Most people think that all they have to do is ask God for forgiveness and God freely forgives,” Ray explains. “That doesn’t work in our civil courts. No, you’re in debt to the Law. He must pronounce judgment on you–a judgment that only Christ can satisfy.”

J -­ Judgment. If God judged you according to those Commandments, would you be innocent or guilty?

“It’s true that, as Christians, we are under the new covenant,” Kirk admits. “But the standards of the Ten Commandments are still the standards by which non-Christians will be judged. Scripture says that liars, thieves, adulterers and blasphemers will be cast into the lake of fire–these are references to the Ten Commandments.”

D -­ Destiny. So, do you think you would go to heaven or hell?

“We all have a will to live,” Ray notes. “Tap into the unbeliever’s God-given survival instinct, and they will naturally seek to shun hell and its torment.”

SIDEBAR: Fear Factor

Ray and Kirk’s five tips for facing–and conquering–the terrors of personal evangelism.

The fate of the ungodly: In the United States, the worst that can happen to a believer for sharing his or her faith is rejection. The worst that can happen to a sinner is eternity in hell.

The fear of the Lord: We should fear God enough to obey Him and preach the gospel to every creature. Paul said, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men …” (2 Cor. 5:11, KJV).

Tracts: Perhaps the most difficult part of witnessing is bringing up the subject. Tracts make it easy to start conversation: “Did you get one of these?” For the faint of heart, a tract makes for an easy getaway.

Conscience: Appealing to the conscience, rather than the intellect or the emotions, will take the “argument” aspect out of witnessing by using the Ten Commandments to awaken a knowledge of sin.

The cross: Would you share your faith more often if you were given $1,000 every time you did it? Most people would. If you could deal with your fear problem for the love of money, could you deal with it for the love of God?

The suffering Savior should be enough to motivate anyone to overcome his or her fears and reach out to the lost.

SIDEBAR: The Comfort Zone

Ray Comfort puts some sacred cows of modern evangelism out of their misery.

Altar-Call Music: “I’ve noticed the power of music. I find myself weeping while I’m watching Little House on the Prairie. I push the mute button and suddenly I’m back to being a man. You can move mountains with music–and you can also manipulate. Imagine if I said to my son after he broke an expensive vase: ‘I told you not to touch that vase. Are you sorry for what you’ve done? Hold on a minute. Before you say anything, let me put on some music to help you make your decision.’ I don’t want to stir his emotions. I want to speak to his will and his conscience.”

The ‘Sinner’s Prayer’: “Instead of saying, ‘Say this prayer after me,’ I say, ‘You might want to say this prayer.’ If a man has committed adultery, do I have to give him a card to read to his wife, ‘Dear wife, I’m sorry I committed adultery’? She’s not interested in his words; she’s interested in his heart. It’s not a rote prayer; it’s a prayer of contrition.”

Follow-up: “If someone is truly converted, they won’t need me to nurse them into the church. Your methodology will be directed by your theology. If you believe that people come to Jesus because of something you say, you’ll feel that their whole salvation is dependent on you. If you say that conviction is of the Holy Spirit, salvation is of the Lord and no one can come unless the Father draws him–then it releases you to let go.”

Friendship Evangelism: “I’m not a big fan of relationship evangelism. Obviously, we have to relate to sinners, but who are the hardest people to witness to? Isn’t it your relations? So why would we make strangers into relations? It’s easier to witness to a stranger. Besides, the person I build a relationship with over a period of months or years could drop dead–then he’s gone for eternity. I can build a relationship with someone in two minutes. I buy them a meal or give them a couple bucks.”

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
Jan/Feb 2005

One congregation’s transformation of an abandoned supermarket to a high-tech worship and outreach center–all on a shoestring budget.

Five years ago, Living Word Fellowship Church was an abandoned grocery store–35,000 square feet of leaking pipes and flickering light bulbs, the floor strewn with abandoned mattresses and debris from homeless people who had made the building their temporary home.

Now, 650 worshipers from 35 nations call this Lauderhill, Florida, church home, and the building serves as a model of what a congregation can do in an area where property is scarce and resources limited.

Tony Palmisano planted Living Word 13 years ago in a former Shriners Hall three miles from its current location. His desire was to build a multiethnic church, reflecting the diversity of the greater Fort Lauderdale area. But the neighborhood surrounding the church was a primarily white, affluent community–and that became the makeup of the church.

“We tried everything we could to make our church welcoming to different cultures,” Palmisano says with a smile. “But everyone looked like they were from Nebraska.”

The change came when Living Word was given the opportunity to purchase an abandoned supermarket three miles away in an area of town known for its cultural diversity. Palmisano recalls how the congregation of 250–with $4,000 in the bank–quickly scraped together enough cash to pay for the building.

One man offered the church $50,000 worth of stock that increased in value to $92,000 in a matter of weeks. Electricians and plumbers donated labor and supplies for restoring the building and the city of Lauderhill waived fees.

Almost five years later, Living Word has utilized all but 8,500 square feet of the facility–one that boasts a high-tech sanctuary with seats for 500, a youth center with pool tables and a snack bar, a kitchen, offices for a full-time staff of eight and children’s classrooms.

“The miracle is not what we’ve done,” Palmisano says. “It’s what we’ve done with nothing.” The secret? “We believe that our volunteers are the key. We have 150 volunteers alone to minister to the 220 kids here at Living Word.”

Soon after the church moved to its current home, Palmisano’s dream for a multiethnic congregation began to take shape. Now, Living Word holds an annual service celebrating the different nationalities represented by people who attend the church. The most recent count was 34.

“And these are people who were not born in the United States,” Palmisano says with a smile. “I’ve discovered now how difficult it is to lead all these cultures in one place–everyone has to give up something to make it work.”

Palmisano attributes the success in this area not only to the location change, but also to a willingness–and desire–to creatively meet felt-needs in the diverse community Living Word calls home.

“We wanted to reach the lost, but traditional methods, such as knocking on doors, have not worked here,” he says. “Our methodology had to change–there were needs in this city that we had to meet.”

As a result, the church is raising money to convert the remaining space in the building to a youth center and recently launched Impact Regional Development Corporation (IRDC), a faith-based community-development organization. Based at Living Word, IRDC serves needs in the neighborhood through a food pantry, computer and accounting classes and after-school activities for children.

Outreach isn’t the only area in which Living Word is applying creative methodology. The church was recently highlighted in the lifestyle section of a regional newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, for its use of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style polling technology.

Palmisano became intrigued while he watched the real-time audience polling data being scrolled along the bottom of the TV screen on ESPN. He thought, Why couldn’t something like this be incorporated into sermons to stimulate congregational interaction?

He discovered the solution in a company that sells a polling device for use in educational settings. The EduCue Personal Response System (PRS) is composed of TV remote-style transmitters that send a signal to a computer connected to a projection screen.

The class instructor–or, in this case, the preacher–asks a question of the audience members, who in turn punch a number corresponding to an answer on a keypad. The results are instantaneously displayed on a bar graph on the screen.

At the beginning of the service, attendees have the option of picking up a PRS transmitter in the foyer. Then, during the sermon, Palmisano will ask a question related to the text, or query the congregation on their opinion on some topic related to the sermon.

He notes that the PRS system has noticeably increased the attentiveness of the congregation–particularly those using the transmitters. It has also provided some unique opportunities for personalized ministry.

Palmisano recalls a sermon in which he was teaching on the family conflicts passed on from Abraham and Isaac to Jacob and his sons. He asked the poll question, “How many of you have issues in your family and believe that God is able to bring healing to them?” Although 92 percent answered “yes,” 4 percent weren’t sure, and another 4 percent answered “no.”

“The whole dynamic changed as the congregation realized that there were people there who thought this problem was bigger than God,” Palmisano says. “Everyone was reaching out to the 8 percent who weren’t sure.”

In addition to the PRS system, the sanctuary at Living Word is wirelessly networked so people who bring laptop computers to church can follow detailed sermon notes.

These high-tech additions have increased preparation time for Palmisano, and he says they have made him think more about asking the right questions and shaping his sermons to be understood by people in the pews. However, he’s ready to shut it all down if it ever detracts from the simple message of the gospel and the teaching of the Word.

“You cannot put together questions and then come up with a message,” he says. “I have to determine that this never takes away from the things of God.”

by Matt Green
from Ministry Today magazine
Nov/Dec 2004