A Free Gift

(Instructions at a church soul winning class.)

Reaching out to the lost is one of the noblest calls that any Christian can have the privilege of taking part in. It is very exciting to welcome a new member to be part of the family of God. Imagine a gift so costly that our Saviour Jesus Christ willingly gave his life on the cross for us to receive freely.

Here’s a simple means that we have used in making this wondrous gift available.

Free hot dogs, free bottled water, free salvation. Sign this card.

We often get new converts that say this: “Wow! That feels so good. What’s next?”

This next part is very important but, and I can’t overemphasize this too much, this next truth should not be included in the plan of salvation but should be lovingly explained to them very soon afterwards. Remember the importance of follow up. We’re not just called to win souls but to make disciples.

Since their salvation is free, they need to realize that to be responsible for their new freedom in Christ that they should be good stewards of God’s money. Some suggest that 10% is a very appropriate place for new believers to start.

We make it very convenient for them. We are a very progressive church. We take cash, debit, credit and cheque ($25 service fee applies on N.S.F.’s.)

As an extra bonus, you can help them feel part of our family. They can get connected by visiting the sick, teaching Sunday school, going on missions trips, visiting lonely people, discipling young people, making coffee, cleaning toilets, cutting the grass, bookkeeping, singing… almost anything that they are skilled at.

By the way, the reward for doing these things is knowing that God loves our cheerful service and sometimes we get to buy the pastor coffee.

To show them how valuable their time is, I have included the real monetary value that we would love to give them for their time. Obviously, it’s impossible for us to really do this as we are a charitable organization. But we can show them how much their services are worth by looking at the pastor’s pay scale.

Here’s a small sample that we use at the church to understand the value of things done for the Lord.

V = volunteer P = pastor

Visit the sick. P = $ 20 - $ 60 per hour V = $0

Teaching P = 8x ($ 20 - $ 60) per hour (7 hours of prep time) V = $0

Disciple someone P = $ 20 – 60 per hour V = $0

Listening to a guest preacher P $ 20 - $ 60 per hour V = $0

Shake hands P = $ 20 - $ 60 per hour V = $0

Singing P = $ 20 - $ 60 per hour V = $0

Missions trip
P = full salary plus all expenses paid (no vacation time required)
V = pays for every part of the trip plus use their family vacation time.

Hopefully we will have lots of volunteers so that the pastor won’t get bogged down and can truly devote more of his valuable time to prayer and bible study. We’ll be even more blessed if we can free him to do just those things. There are many opportunities for volunteers to store up treasure in heaven. And to think, they get to do all of this storing up for their entire earthly existence.

Thankfully the volunteers won’t be overwhelmed by all the details in a church service as people will expect the pastor to do the really important things like praying for the sick, presiding over communion and baptizing new converts. We are so blessed to have a man who really knows how to hear from God.

If anyone wonders why the pay scale is laid out that way, share with them the joy of having such a wonderful man of God who is there to model true servant hood. This is also a great time to explain to them the Biblical teaching of double honor.

Here’s a helpful application of this glorious truth.
When giving the pastor his Christmas gift this year, make sure to tell him how much you truly honor him.

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Don’t limit yourself to reaching new converts. There are many Christians out there who are struggling in churches that haven’t made discipleship vital and would love to find a wonderful church family like ours. Obviously, they won’t need the plan of salvation explained to them and you can get right to the heart of discipleship.

Sunday School Lessons

I read an advertisement from a Sunday school publisher a few years back that claimed their curriculum gave the complete teachings of the Bible over a 7 year period. That word “complete” fascinated me. Here's just a few samples of what can be included in the complete teachings of the Bible.

Why it is important to be good.

The grand daddy of all Sunday school lessons is Noah and the ark. Lots of churches even use cute pictures of Noah's ark to decorate their Sunday school classrooms and entrance ways into the children's education wing of the building.

It’s fun for the kids to draw and color animals. They can then pretend to be animals and march into the ark.

The next part of the lesson is when you take 8 kids from the large group and put them in some pretend ark. The remainder of the kids get to scream for their lives as they pound on the door of the ark. Don't be surprised if the kids in the ark are disappointed and want to be the kids outside the ark. Kids love to scream and pound.

After about 5 minutes they have to be dead silent for another 5 minutes. (10 minutes if you have a headache from all the screaming and pounding.) After that and to finish the lesson on a positive note, you can put a picture of Hiroshima on the wall and have the kids draw a rainbow over it. Kids like coloring rainbows.

Saying sorry is important. (lots of these lessons)

Solomon’s birth. His father, King David, was a peeping tom and enjoyed seeing Bathsheeba naked while taking a bath. He instructed his servant to bring Bathsheeba to the palace so he could force her to commit adultery with him. They forgot to use precautions (good chance for some sex ed teaching) and Bathsheeba got pregnant.

Her husband, Uriah, one of David’s most dedicated soldiers was away at war. David, the man after God’s own heart, realized his mistake and had Uriah killed so he could marry Bathsheeba to make things right. Was she wife number 2 or 3? After the baby died, David did say that he was sorry. This lesson is best taught by having the kids act out the different roles.

Time management and eating a healthy diet.

After saying sorry, David had another son with Bathsheeba. His name was Solomon. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He had to have been a genius (he was the wisest man ever) in time management in order to keep that many women happy. You can have the children use an excel spreadsheet in order to plan Solomon’s days and weeks and months regarding those special times with his wives. As a bonus, you can do a lesson on the importance of a healthy diet. After all, Solomon must have shown great wisdom with what he ate in order to keep up his stamina.

Becoming a hero for God.

The first story of David becoming a hero by fighting Goliath is a really popular lesson with children. Boys especially like this lesson but don't think for a minute that the girls won't like it. They get to make slings to throw plastic golf balls (rocks are tough on the classroom) at a giant dummy. The first kid to hit the dummy between the eyes gets to use the wooden sword to hack off the dummy's head. The goal is to decapitate the giant dummy with one swing.

You can even put a crown on the winner's head. The crown can have "Hero for God", written on it. Warning: this game is so popular, kids will be unhappy if they don't get to play it every week.

Don't be surprised if you get an invitation from the children's public school to discuss your hands on approach to teaching children the Bible.

Everything has a purpose and can be worked out for good.

Judah’s daughter in law Tamar disguised herself like a prostitute. The girls in the class will like dressing up in pretty clothes to disguise themselves. Judah being the honorable father-in-law that he was, paid to have sex with her. In all kindness to Judah he didn’t recognize Tamar. Tamar became pregnant with twins. One of the son’s name was Perez.

You can finish this lesson with a great punchline of showing how all things have a purpose and work together for good. Perez was Jesus’ great, great…great grampa. To re-enforce the idea that good can come from bad things have the kids write stories of terrible things that have happened to them and then have them imagine good endings to their stories.

How to win the love of your life.

This lesson is especially good for young adults but apparently can be taught to children as well. This is how David won the heart of the love of his life, Michal.

This is a wonderful lesson that includes working with paper mache. First you need an example for the kids to follow of a foreskin. You may have one in your house as a keepsake from one of your kids. You need to make 100 of them as this is what was necessary for David to win Michal. The cool thing about this lesson is it also teaches how to use knives correctly. It includes a good lesson in counting, especially for children under 7, as they get to count the 100 foreskins.

As all Bible stories need application it should be noted that in all fairness it's much harder for those seeking a wife these days to really apply this lesson. It's difficult to know which guy has a foreskin and it's wrong to kill men that don't have one. This could be a test for someone's ingenuity and desire to do it the Bible way.

Next time somebody asks whether we should take the Bible literally, make sure to check if they are carrying a sharp knife.

Just a Little Bit More

How much involvement in programs and services is enough to feel good about ourselves? The performance voice that is often found in religious circles would say, just a little bit more.

Here’s a snapshot of my wife and I in our younger years. We were 23 at the time. We had two children ages 3, 2. I was working at General Motors and I was purposely not working on Sunday in order to honor the Sabbath.

Sunday:
7:00 am get up to get ready for church
8:00 am arrive at church for prayer
8:30 am get on bus to pick up kids for bus ministry. I was the bus driver and Terry was the bus captain.
9:15 am get back to church for Sunday school. Terry was a teacher and I went to adult class.
11:00 am Church service with Terry sometimes working in Children’s church.
12:10 pm Take the bus kids back home after a wonderful morning
1: 30 pm Go home, make lunch and then nap time for everyone
5:00 pm Get ready for evening church
6:00 pm Get to church for pre-service prayer
7:00 pm Church service that went to 9:00 pm sometimes later
We were sometimes invited out to somebody’s home for fellowship after the service.

Monday: 6:30 - 8:30 pm Once a month I went to Men’s Fellowship which was a church service with just men. Terry also went to Women’s Ministry once a month.

Tuesday: 6:30 - 9:00 pm I was a leader in Christian Service Brigade. (similar to boy scouts)

Wednesday: 6:30 - 9:00 Bible study and prayer

Thursday: 6:30 - 9:00 pm Terry was a leader with a girl’s group at church.

Friday: 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm Youth service. Both of us were volunteer leaders at a youth service.

Saturday: 8:00 am arrive at church for breakfast

9:00 - noon Bus ministry (we did house to house to visitation and recruitment) If I was working Terry went with the kids by herself.

We did everything we could to be active in church. Our church was growing quickly. We had gone from 75 to almost 200 from the time of our salvation 3 years earlier. It was exciting. We were tithing faithfully spending about 25 hours a week with church activities. We couldn’t get enough.

Looking back we see were very busy, surrounded by people, but had no close friends and definitely no older person taking an interest in our lives.

When we were 27, as a result of a pastoral change and some deep hurts that had happened to us, we left that church. The new pastor came by with some small, farewell gift to thank us for our involvement. We told him to keep his gift. He was surprised by our ingratitude.

At least half of the people that were leading programs with us at the time are now divorced.

Terry and I went to another church and got involved again. We were much wiser and only put about 15 hours per week into the church. We still developed no close friends and no one invested in our lives outside of seeing them at church.

When I was 29 I did have a mature man who was 55 and had been in church all his life, ask me out for a coffee. He had seen one of our kids playing with a few cards at Wednesday night Bible study and was very concerned for us.

I loved all of this so much that at the age of 30, I quit my job at GM to go to Bible school for 4 years to become a pastor.

I truly wanted to become like my first pastor. He was and is a wonderful man. Any losses we felt at church wasn't because the programs weren't great, it was the people (including us) that were the problem.

When Does Eternity Begin?

For some there is a longing, a crying, a secret wishing to leave this world and be in heaven. For them, eternity is something that happens later. It is not NOW, it is a future hope. It seems like an eternity as they wait to be with Jesus.

What will we take with us from this place of time and space? Not much.

Matt 6:19 (NIV) "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

There is so much drivenness within the Christian world about the need for buildings, programs, doctrines and authority. So much time is spent on the wood, hay and stubble of religion. Will a building make it to heaven? Will our Father be impressed with our system that defines who is in the fold and who is out? Will someone’s pet doctrine find centre place there? Will Sunday sermons be spoken in heaven? Will the people that we love be found there?

If eternity has already begun doesn’t it make sense to fiercely hold onto those things that will last for eternity. The best plans, programs and buildings are nothing but wood, hay and stubble. Why do people feel the need to protect that which cannot last?

Catch 22

Pride is a real stinker when it comes to change within religious circles. When I was in Bible College there were days when some of the young students were totally flabbergasted with what they were learning. Some even broke down crying because they were being taught something that would contradict their pastor back home. They had been taught the ways of the Lord from a young age and that included following their pastor’s teaching. The more they studied the more they found out that he was wrong. Some made the adjustment; some went home more confused than ever.

Here’s an example of a dilemma that is constantly nipping at people’s heals when it comes to hearing God’s voice. What if He says something that contradicts past decision making? A group of people felt God showed them to purchase land and build a building. Everything is going smoothly until someone reads my blog. Are these the writings of a mad man? Easy to dismiss. But something nags him a bit.

Could it be that he has been like the Pharisees and missed Jesus. Is the true nature of the church, the people or is it the building? Does our very existence actually promote disunity? Do we really spend most of the Lord’s money on ourselves rather than on caring for others? Only 2 cents of every dollar goes to real needs? Did I make a mistake in how I heard God’s voice?

If David is right then I will have to quit being part of the building program. I know the group will be upset with me and never change their plans. Ultimately my friends will abandon me and I won’t belong anywhere.

Nope, just the ravings of a mad man.

The Offering: Babel is Alive and Well Funded

A typical prayer for the church offering.

Lord, we ask you to take these gifts and use them for the extension of Your kingdom and to give You glory.

How is the offering used?

90% of offerings in a church go to the building and establishing a name for a group of people to rally around.

It seems to me that the Lord might consider those reasons as rather blasphemous ways of giving Him glory.

Gene 11:4 (NIV) Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." …8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

I used to be a pastor and I prayed for the offering many times. I never considered the above verse as having any context for us today. If anyone even implied, what I am now saying directly, I would have just saw them as either naïve or bitter or chicken.

I now see church systems and professional pastoring as a strange drug that I was so addicted to.

I quit a $60,000 a year job to go to school for 4 years to pastor a little church for $20,000 a year. When one of my most dedicated members got cancer and couldn’t work he continued to tithe in order to pay my income.

What is really weird to me now is that I could take money from him and his family so that my family could live in poverty. I actually considered what we were doing as “giving God the glory.”

Reasons for Sunday Sermons

Each week, millions of Christians declare them to be very valuable. When they could be sleeping in, going for a walk in the park, playing with their kids, spending time with friends or golfing, they have chosen to express their faith by going to a church building to listen to a sermon.

Why is it important?

Teaching: in a day when there is easy access to better teaching and preaching through the internet it’s foolish to say that content is the reason.

Seeing friends: that’s just too dumb to comment on.

The Bible says we need it: where?

Focused: it does make them come back next week.

It brings unity: nope, it brings disunity to the body of Christ as a whole.

Evangelism: cost for every person becoming a Christian = $349,000.00 (this is not a mistake)

Makes the people feel good: religious addictions are often the hardest to identify and break.

Makes the pastor feel good: Yep. It also justifies his salary.

The last two points are the only two reasons that are understandable.