Greatest Obstacle

I was in a meeting the other day, and the question was asked of someone, "what do you see as the greatest obstacle to reaching the area?" The answer did not surprise me, but I think the mindset behind it is common, but misses the point. Christians confuse winning individuals with winning a nation (in the geo-political sense of the word). They are convinced that the great american cultural tide flowing against Christianity is what is to be overcome if we are to reach people. Therefore we hear proposed solutions to obstacles to reaching people:

"God needs to be back in schools!"
"The Ten Commandments still need to be taught and posted!"
"Marriage needs to be back to a man and woman!"
"Nativity scenes should be put on the courthouse lawns!"
"We need a Christian back in the White House or on Capital Hill!
"We need prayer in a our school functions!"

And of course with the most recent incident of the KY court clerk and her marriage license civil disobedience, lighter fluid has been poured on the Christian fire of former days of a national moral conscience. But I really think all of these things are not the road back to making more followers of Jesus.

The advance of the church and expansion of the Kingdom of God is not tied to whether or not there are nativity scenes in courthouse lawns. In fact, historically, baptist have argued for a separation between church and state, not in the sense of removal of all religious symbols, but in the sense of we do not want the state inserting itself into the practice of one's faith, or endorsing one particular faith over the other. Especially the Anabaptist strain of our faith history was vigilant in its commitment to this principle, almost to a fault. The actual phrase "a wall of separation of church between and state" came from a baptist to then presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, making sure that he had no plans to set up a state church or national religion. The first amendment provides freedom of religion and laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof; basically, it is protecting the church from the government.

So, there's my soapbox for those that want a return to national morality, and Christianity specifically, to achieve revival in America. Nominal Christianity is fading, which by the way is one of the main contributing factors to increase in immorality, and this is a good thing. Statistically younger generations are more willing to listen about faith and truth, but less willing to go to a church. Therefore, the greatest obstacle to reaching our area is getting our people to love their neighbors, build relationships with them, evangelize and disciple them in their homes, then integrate them into churches, Hence, the number one obstacle is us, and our unwillingness to reach unbelievers personally, where we live.

"There's A Man With a Machete in Our Church!"

Well, I just figured I would share the most memorable night of our Fall Challenge Week (revival). People usually remember revivals because people come to know Christ; or marriages get saved; or passion is rekindled in their spirits; or God moves in a spectacular way. But we will remember this one for a totally different reason.

FCW goes from Thurs night to Sun morning. Thurs night was fairly normal revival, good attendance, good worship, good movement of God upon His people, and a great start to our week. But then on Friday about halfway through the speaker's message, a man somehow ended up in our building. He was really drunk, and he had one of those strap-on deer-hunting flashlights on his forehead. AND he was carrying a big machete!

For a few minutes he walked up and down the back hallway screaming and beating on the doors with his machete. One of the doors that he knocked on was the door to the nursery, where the women and children were, and they opened the door to see this guy with his machete looking back at them. Needless to say, they were terrified! Slamming the door they began to text message several people out in the church for help.

Well, it was church, and so everyone's phone was off or on silent. So they were trapped. Not good, with a possible deranged killer loose inside the building. Eventually this guy found his way into the back door to the choir loft behind the pulpit, and he stumbled right in to the worship service with his light and machete, about 10 feet from the pulpit. Needless to say, this was unnerving to lots of people. And Erika was elbowing me and punching me, telling me to "do something!"

The light on his forehead distracted most people from the large machete, and so most of them didn't see it. So nobody was panicking yet (except Erika and the ladies in the nursery). After I decided that this wasn't a skit to go along with the message, I found the biggest guy in the church, and told him to come with me. (I needed someone to tackle him that was bigger than me)

We went to the hallway, and told the man to come to us out of the sanctuary. He wouldn't! And he wouldn't give us the machete. So, I did what any brave pastor would do--I told my big deacon to watch him real close, told the other deacon to go check on his wife, and I went to get my gun from the truck and call the cops (not necessarily in that order).

By the time the deputies got there (less than four minutes, but seemed like forever, kudos to all my boys and the TCSO), the man had changed his mind, given us the machete, come out of the choir loft, and said he needed to find a restroom. And right before they arrived, one of our men in the church, who happened to be a neighbor to this guy, came back to fill us in (where were you the last ten minutes!!!!).

He said that this guy was like the town drunk, lots of substance abuse issues, and probably just needed a ride home. And so we said, you go and see. And so he went into the restroom, and talked a bit, deputies arrived, and we got that guy a ride home. Not in handcuffs, much to dismay of my nursery workers, but out of our church all the same. What a night! And I stepped into the sanctuary just in time to pray the closing prayer as if nothing happened, like anyone believed that!

It makes me smile now (because I don't believe that this man's intention was to hurt or scare anyone), but then it was really scary. None of us wanted to be on the news the next day. In our day, you just don't know. Don't think many people remember much of the sermon. But we did learn how ill-prepared we were for just such an event. And there are many changes to come about how we handle things like this, and much preparation is in order. We are also very grateful to God for His mercy upon us. For even though this guy was very drunk, and very confused, this could have gone really bad. We are encouraged that Satan us using strategies like this to distract us, and trust that something big in the Kingdom is on the way.

Please pray for us as we continue to deal with the after effects of an event like this. Pray that we forgive, fix our eyes upon Christ, refuse to live in fear, and prepare in wisdom for future events. Hopefully we never have to deal with such an event, but in my short pastoral ministry, this has now happened twice in six years.

Help us, Lord, to live and handle situations like this in a way pleasing unto You!

Advance09 Conference

This week is really crazy! Last week we were in TN to visit family, then we went to the Advance09 Conference in Durham, NC. VBS started the day after we returned, and I am trying to get ahead for a Georgia Baptist Convention RA Camp that I have to preach at next week in Warner Robbins. All that to say that I was planning on putting off this blog until next week...but

It was so good that I couldn't (not the blog, but the conference). It was a great conference, but unlike other conferences, where I usually go to hear one or two speakers, and endure the rest, all the speakers here were great. And usually I hear from God through the one or two that I go to hear, but this time God spoke through the conference as a whole. The speakers were all reading from the same piece of music. And their song was that as a church we must refocus our hearts on Christ!

The audio is up, and it free. You can download all the messages here or here. I really want to encourage you to get them and be encouraged and challenged. If you only have time to listen to one or two, here are my recommendations: 1) you must listen to Mark Driscoll's message on Idolatry, it is devastating. 2) listen to J. D. Greear's message on religion, I think the title is about revitalization, but it is really not about that. I must admit that I haven't listened to Akin's message or Piper's second message. I have downloaded them, but not listened yet. We had to leave the conference early to get home.

Subsequently, we also got to have dinner with our pastor friends (Barry and Missy and Scott and Kim) from Maine while we were there. Our fellowship was sweet, and it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. And it is good to hear how God is continuing to move in Maine.

As I work on this week's message for New River, I cannot help but reflect on our week at the conference. I am preaching through our vision statement for our church these next few weeks, and God is so good to provide a revival of sorts for my own heart through this conference, as I prepare to preach. May God send the winds of revival as we hoist the sails at New River!