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Police Break Up Our Service

August 7, 2011 in Asia, Discipleship, Ministry Philosophy, Persecution, Prayer Requests, Preaching, Training Leaders with 0 Comments

This is from one of our dearest friends. He serves in China and is home on a short furlough now. I am right now on the phone with another friend from our church in China! I hurt for the believers, the Bible teachers, and all who serve God in China.

I want to comment on the questions asked by my friend.

source

Oh the junk going through my head right now….

Got a phone call from my buddy tonight just as we were laying down to go to sleep. Told me that there was an email from China just sent out to our missionary team (I am in the States right now). This morning’s church service was interrupted by twenty police officers. Two of the Chinese men training for ministry, two of the best friends God has ever blessed me with, are in the police station right now.

One of them was about ten minutes into his sermon when they came in. They didn’t all have on uniforms – most didn’t I understand. The pastor from the government church was in their entourage. Guess it didn’t get ugly or anything. They gave the Chinese people a lecture on the illegality of the service. Took down people’s info. Then they took the guys away. In good spirits, according to my co-laborer still on the field.

- why am I here on the other side of the world when this goes down?
- how long are they going to hold the guys?
- what are we going to do next week?
- whose faith will be shown to be false in this trial?
- will the cops leave us alone after this?
- how much of our 4 years of work must be rebuilt?
- do those two know how much I love them and how proud I am?
- have I prepared them sufficiently for this day?

One question need not be asked, and I pray my friends won’t ask it even in custody: is it worth it? Preaching the Gospel to many who are learning to love it, to some who’ve never heard it before? Attempting to share it with even more people? If that’s not worth it all, what is?

Was there a way to avoid this? Sure. By staying under the rock. Maybe they’ll keep pushing us back under. If so, we’ll do all we can from there. But how can we not try to reach? Not try to be more bold? How can we content ourselves with the rumors of other people’s persecutions and avoid all of our own? How can we act like we have no higher purpose than escaping persecution? Jesus was expelled from places, as was Paul – who do we think we are to rest under the rock?

So to all my friends and brothers who visit this page: please pray, not that the Lord will allow us to escape safely under the rock, but that we will take refuge in him and gladly pay the price of preaching the Salvation that cost the ultimate price to earn.

God is in control. He knew this was going to happen as well as did my friends. They have been the boldest witnesses I know of in China. They will continue to be so. Many have been saved. Others have grown spiritually.

They were big enough to get on the Devil’s radar. Their message was never political but Biblical. They told people about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The true believers will be stronger. Some will go back because they never believed. Others may be scared for a short time but will believe and get stronger.

This is just more proof of why we must train national pastors to do the work in case the missionaries get kicked out!

This is proof of the need for an indigenous church. A church that can operate on their own, serving Jesus, without help from America.

I am so proud of these believers. I am super proud of my missionary friendsh. They are my heroes. They have trained the men. One of them was preaching today. None of them backed down. None of them denied who they were, who Jesus is, or what they were doing.

That happens because God’s men have invested correctly in the people.

This is not a man’s work and it will stand. Jesus is and will be glorified. To my friends M and J. I love you and I am so proud of you!

To my friends in China I love you. I am so super proud of you and blessed they get to know you and serve Jesus with you.

Keep up the good work!

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God Stuff or Good Stuff

August 6, 2011 in Helpful Material, Ministry Philosophy, Ministry Tools, Preaching, Reading Notes with 1 Comment

If you are a preacher I hope you will take the time to read the following quote. It is a little long but well worth your time. The older I get the more I realize how much I have spent time on the good stuff and not on the God stuff. I realize that I have preached pop psychology. I have preached what my pastor friends believed and my heroes taught me. I have been very wrong.

Real preaching is preaching the Bible and what it says. I wish that I had been better educated as a young man so that I would not have hurt so many people. I wish that someone would have helped me to see that I should preach the Bible and not mimic so much of what I was seeing.

Read this and consider it! We need to be real God Stuff preachers and not good stuff! It is hard for my pride to admit that I have made so many mistakes but I have. I feel like I am just now learning what I should have learned 40 years ago!

We live in a day in which people in churches are crying out for practical application and longing to see the relevance of the Bible. People have grown weary listening to sermons that only give them historical facts but provide them with no connection to real life.

Because we are a people of extremes, however, our humanity causes us to overreact to such abuses. And the result is that the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme of viewing the Bible merely as a resource manual for life on earth. And our infatuation with practical application has caused us to overlook the most important quality of the Bible—its Divine feature. We must understand that the Bible is God-centered, not man-centered. It is a book about Him more than it is a book about us. To make it otherwise is both selfish and arrogant. When we search God’s Word with a how-to mentality, we often run right past the revelation of Almighty God. This perversion fits hand in glove with the order of contemporary culture: “It’s all about me!”

The confusion regarding the essence of the Bible is compounded when applied to pastoral preaching, and the resulting deception is ever so subtle. Shepherds are ministers of grace and desire to meet people’s needs and heal their hurts. But what happens when the Bible gives no specific and practical help for the life situations some of our people are facing? Among other things, the shepherd in his desire to help is tempted to find his preaching material from some place other than the Bible. Walter Kaiser lamented that many pastors have decided that using the Bible is a handicap for meeting the needs of the current generation and, therefore, “have gone to drawing their sermons from the plethora of recovery and pop-psychology books that fill our Christian bookstores.” Worse yet, the shepherd lowers himself to making the Bible say things it does not say. In an attempt to offer practical and helpful information, he stands up to say, “Thus saith the Lord,” when the Lord did not saith! How can God get the glory if the preacher does not speak what God says?

While the preaching described above cannot necessarily be categorized as heresy or even blatant error, neither can it be described as consisting of the inspired Word of God. In Power in the Pulpit, Jerry Vines and I described this subtlety as the often overlooked difference between good stuff and God’s stuff. The body of truth that is revealed in the Bible, given for the purpose of godliness (see 2 Pet. 1:2–4) and righteousness (see 2 Tim. 3:16), can be called God’s stuff. It is the stuff of the Bible—its very essence. On the other hand, there is much helpful advice in life that is comprised of information or principles gleaned from simple observation and research. That is good stuff. Let us be very clear—the shepherd has not been charged with the task of speaking on all matters of good stuff.

While all truth is God’s truth, not all truth has been included in His written Word. He has sovereignly chosen to include only that which is necessary for man’s sanctification. There is a whole lot of good and helpful information in the world, but God did not choose to consecrate all of it as His inspired revelation necessary for spiritual transformation. In our previous work we cited the example of Aristotle, who delineated his principles of rhetoric simply by engaging in observation. He watched enough public speakers that he was able to glean certain “truths” for doing it effectively. The principles of rhetoric have had profound impact on preaching and all other forms of public speaking. But they are merely good stuff. Although they are both helpful and useful, they will not foster the God-life, much less glorify Him.

But the crisis we face in preaching today is not shepherds who deliver sermons on how to do good public speaking. The body of good stuff is far more appealing to contemporary churchgoers. That is what makes it so tough. If a therapist observes enough people dealing with stress on the job place, he will glean certain helpful principles for addressing the issue. If a marriage counselor observes enough people journeying through divorce recovery, she will be able to develop some guidelines that are helpful for that crisis. If parenting experts talk with enough moms and dads who are raising kids, they will be able to outline some practical ways for navigating such a task. And there will always be certain general truths in Scripture which can be applied to these and other life experiences.

The shepherd’s authority to stand and speak “Thus saith the Lord” is not in good stuff, but God’s stuff. While biblical truth surely informs certain principles that might be categorized as good stuff, its primary intent is more specific and far-reaching. The faithful shepherd will rightly interpret, exegete, and proclaim the truth of Scripture so as to allow it to accomplish its purpose in people’s lives. But when the shepherd prostitutes God’s stuff for good stuff, anarchy occurs. And the biggest tragedy is not what people are getting but what they are not getting. While they certainly are getting some helpful information, they are being robbed of the truth that is necessary for realizing God’s end and subsequently bringing glory to Him.

God’s stuff is the very essence of the Bible. It is His book, and it is primarily about Him. When the preacher begins at this point in his interpretation and his application, then he is sure to exalt God and bring glory to His name. When he begins at the point of resourcing man regarding all of his questions and felt needs, however, his interpretation and application are certain to exalt humanity.

Shaddix, J. (2003). The Passion Driven Sermon : Changing the Way Pastors Preach and Congregations Listen (64–66). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman.

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12 Takeaways From the story of Farmer Fred:

August 1, 2011 in Church Planting Methods, Discipleship, Ministry Philosophy, Reading Notes with 1 Comment

The summation from Missionary Stephen Benefield in Cambodia!

1. If you want to plant a church, first plant yourself.

2. If you want the cream of the crop, you must first plant a crop.

3. If you are reticent to take a risk and invest time, labor, and resources in an uncertain crop, you will never see the cream of the crop.

4. Missionary work is long, hard, repetitious, and tedious.

5. Sometimes the people who take the longest to reach make the most solid Christians and leaders.

6. It does not make sense to say, “God has burdened me for a certain country, but if there are no missionaries there yet, I can’t go.” Maybe the fact that no one is there is the reason God burdened you.

7. You must work with many people who will eventually wash-out in order to find the ones who won’t.

8. If everybody quit their “small” works to be missionaries-at-large, the missionaries-at-large would be out of business. The larger boats float on the “drops-in-the-bucket”.

9. There are no shortcuts in missions.

10. Fast results are a blessing when they are genuine and “of God”, but more often than not, fast results are empty.

11. You will fail many times, but failure is not the end unless you let it be.

12. Just like in farming, there is no true success in missions without investing your life, dirtying your hands, dealing with disappointment, and remaining 100% committed to the cause.

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Shortcut Sam and Farmer Fred

July 30, 2011 in Church Planting Methods, Discipleship, Ministry Philosophy, Reading Notes with 0 Comments

More from Missionary Stephen Benefield in Cambodia. Read it and enjoy!

One day Farmer Fred heard a voice loudly hailing him from the road. He went down the lane to his main gate and met a nice man, a friendly man, who introduced himself as Shortcut Sam and then wasted no time in saying what was on his mind.

“Farmer Fred, I’ve heard a lot about your farm. You’ve been at it for a good long while. But I think I could really help to streamline your operation so you could get a lot more bang for your buck, if you know what I mean.”

Farmer Fred was a little wary of the man’s introduction, especially after Big Bob and Ralph the Reaper; nevertheless, he decided to give this new man a chance to say what he came to say. “I’m listening,” said Farmer Fred.

“Well, it’s like this. Your approach is too complicated. I’ve been watching how you do things. It seems like you put an awful lot of time into pointless labor. For example, you choose a field, then you put a bunch of time into clearing it. After it’s cleared you spend a good long while turning over the dirt with your plow. After you’ve plowed, you plant, and then the work really starts. I’ve seen you spend hours and hours out in your fields irrigating them, pulling up weeds, and chasing away crows and critters. Then after all that work, after weeks and weeks of working dawn ’til dusk, the crop fails! Don’t you see it, man? You’re spending too much time on crops that fail.”

“There is no doubt about it, I have poured a lot of time over the years into crops that failed,” replied a somber Farmer Fred.

“That’s right! You see, the way I farm, I don’t waste time on failed crops. I only want to work with the best, the strongest, the most vivacious of crops.”

“But how do you do that?” asked Farmer Fred sincerely.

“The key is, you have to be shrewd! Hey, we’re not trying to find the most difficult path to success, right? There’s always a better, smarter, more efficient, more streamlined way to do anything.”

“You mean a shortcut?”

Shortcut Sam grinned. “Now you’re getting it.”

“To be shrewd means you only work in fields that have a high probability of success. I don’t fiddle around clearing, plowing, and planting seeds that aren’t too likely to yield a good crop. You have to kind of hang back at first. Don’t rush right into anything. The field may turn out to be a loser. Don’t commit your time, your effort, or your resources until you are sure you have the best.”

By this time Farmer Fred was scratching his head. “I’m totally lost now. The way I’ve always understood farming to work, there is a process that is required. When we clear a field, plow a field, plant a field, water a field, and chase birds from a field, we have no way of knowing the outcome of that crop ahead of time. Seems to me that farming requires risk-taking. And taking a risk means investing yourself in something that might fail. After we have done all we can do, the crop may indeed fail. That’s up to the good Lord. But if we believe enough in our farming, we just try again. We’ll have a crop turn out by and by, but we just have to be patient and keep working.”

Shortcut Sam rolled his eyes. He had heard this before. “Look, Farmer Fred, you can stick with the old ways if you want to, but the farmers who are on the cutting edge will soon pass you by.”

“Cutting edge?”

“Farmer Fred, you may not know this, but there are several experts out there right now who are developing new techniques for farming. I’m talking about techniques that will revolutionize the industry. For example, there is a new method out there now that causes only good, usable wheat to grow in your wheat field, and virtually eliminates the chaff. I mean, think about it! Do you really have time to separate the wheat from the chaff? With this new technique, the unpleasantries are made unnecessary. It’s amazing! But you want to know the most groundbreaking research that’s going on right now? (Obviously you haven’t been keeping up on this stuff.) Soon there will be tools and methods in place where a farmer might obtain “the cream of the crop” without the hassle of actually growing a crop.”

But Farmer Fred had had enough. “Stop!” he cried. “Young man, I hate to tell you this, but you’ve been listening to way too many people who are long on theories but short on experience. Let me tell you something, and you can take this to the bank: There are no shortcuts in farming.”

Shortcut Sam realized that he was fighting a losing battle, so he said curtly, “Suit yourself, Farmer Fred,” and made his exit.

*****

Thirty years later, Farmer Fred sat on the front porch of his farmhouse with Mrs. Farmer Fred, looking over their farm. It was just about harvest time, and the fields were glistening with wheat and corn and vegetables. There were many more fields now than there were in those early years. They had added orchards and some vineyards too. Even though many of the crops were yet in the fields, the barn and silo were already overflowing with bounty.

“God has been good to us, dear,” said Farmer Fred.

“Indeed he has” replied his wife.

As he sat there enjoying the cool breeze and the sunset, his mind took him way back to three visitors who had once visited his farm. He was glad he hadn’t listened to Big Bob, the farmer-at-large. Gazing across the fruit of a lifetime of labor, the thought suddenly occurred to him. “This work would never have been accomplished had I not planted myself in this place and made this farm my life’s work.”

He was also glad he hadn’t listened to Ralph the Reaper. He thought, “Had I plucked up every unripe piece of grain or fruit that poked through the ground I would have never had anything to replant. This farm would have died off years ago.”

His mind wandered back to Shortcut Sam’s big ideas. “I wonder what ever became of him. I wonder if he ever realized that you can’t skip over all the long, hard work of farming and just go straight to the blessings. And I wonder if he ever decided to take a risk.”

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Ralph the Reaper and Farmer Fred

July 29, 2011 in Church Planting Methods, Discipleship, Ministry Philosophy, Reading Notes with 0 Comments

The following is a story by Missionary Stephen Benefield in Cambodia. It is super excellent with much for me to learn and consider!

One day another guest dropped by to see Farmer Fred. He identified himself as Ralph the Reaper, a no-nonsense, results-oriented farmer. “Nice place you got here,” he said, but that was where the pleasantries ended. Immediately he began to ply Farmer Fred with questions about numbers and results and yield. “How many bushels of wheat do you produce each year? How about your fruits and vegetables? How are they doing? How many baskets of green beans did you bring in last year? How many last month? How many last week?”

“To be honest with you, sir, it’s not been a great year for harvesting, but still…”

Ralph the Reaper quickly cut off Farmer Fred and said, “If it hasn’t been a good year for harvesting, then it hasn’t been a good year at all. As farmers, our one and only concern is the harvest.”

The man seemed pretty sure of himself, so Farmer Fred decided to just let him talk.

“How long have you been farming here?” he asked.

“Twenty-five years.”

“Wow! I would think you would have more to show for it than this.”

“Well, I would love to have more to show for it, but farming is very slow work you know.”

“Not the way I do it.”

This piqued Farmer Fred’s interest. He had never heard anyone claim that farming could be done quickly. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You should move more quickly. Sow, reap, sow, reap, sow, reap. That’s the way it is supposed to work. I noticed as I came up the lane today that you have multiple fields which should be reaped by now.”

“But they haven’t been reaped yet because they aren’t ready. I’m waiting until they are ripe, and then I will harvest them.”

But Ralph the Reaper was adamant. “I see your problem. You’ve bought into this whole concept that crops must develop over time. A lot of time is wasted by waiting. There are too many fields to plant, too many crops that need to be raised. We don’t have time to let things hang on vines and cling to stalks.”

Farmer Fred could tell right away that this man knew nothing about true farming, but out of simple curiosity he asked, “And how do you do it?”

“Well it’s not really that difficult. I plant seeds, and as soon as I see a little green poking up through the dirt, I pick it!”

“And if it’s not ripe?”

“That’s not my problem. My concern is with the harvest.”

“And how is that working out for you?”

“Well, to be honest with you, a pretty low percentage of the crops are of high quality. Most are not usable once we get them into the barn. But I just know that doesn’t mean we are harvesting too early. It’s got to be something else.”

Farmer Fred could see he was not going to get anywhere with this man, so he changed the subject and asked why the man had stopped by.

“So what can I do for you today?”

“Well, like I said…I was driving down the road alongside of your farm and I noticed the field of young corn coming up.”

“Yes, sir!” replied Farmer Fred proudly. “I’ve worked hard on that field, and I’m thrilled to see the field turning green with growth after all the work.”

Farmer Fred thought the man must have simply stopped to compliment his beautiful corn field with it’s straight rows and neat fences. But that wasn’t really what he had in mind. Ralph the Reaper said, “Yep I saw that field of young corn shooting up and I thought what a joy it would be to reap them. So, can I help you?”

“Well, I suppose if it means that much to you and you want to come back over in about 3 months when it’s time to harvest, I’d be much obliged to have your help. Sure!”

“Three months?!! I was actually wanting to do it today.”

“Well, in that case,” replied Farmer Fred, “I guess I don’t need your help after all. If you’re going to pull up crops that aren’t ripe, I would appreciate it if you would do it somewhere other than on my farm.”

As Ralph the Reaper hurried down the lane, Farmer Fred heard him muttering, “I just don’t see why some guys insist on such slow farming methods.”

*****

Time continued to march on. Farmer Fred did indeed harvest the field of corn that the man had wanted to pluck up prematurely. And because he let it get nice and ripe and mature on the stalk, it ended up making some of the best seed corn he had ever had. The next year when he planted his corn, he was so glad he had insisted on picking the corn only when it was ready to be picked or he would not have had seed corn to replant.

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