Wednesday in Iowa

Dr. Briscoe continued in Ephesians 4, now emphasizing the unity and diversity that is found in our God and which therefore must be found in his people. An obvious requirement is that we live in unity, if we are an evidence of God's ability to bring together all things. Make every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit. "Whereas any idiot can have an argument, it takes mature people to find points of agreement and put other things aside for later attention in order that we might be building each other up, unifying ourselves rather than disintegrating and deteriorating like the rest of the cosmos around us."

My seminar was with missionary Larry Correll and his wife Sue. They discussed typical issues in the field, one of which will be my opening sermon illustration on Sunday

One of the wonderful treats was Pastor Tim Sir and the praise band from his church (at least I think they were). Earlier in the morning, in addition to playing for hymns and praise songs, they had sung "I'll Fly Away." At the end of the blog for today is a link (I hope) to "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." Vocal harmonies were great. The young young man playing bass is the son of the banjo player to his left and is playing his first "gig."

In the evening, we again heard from David Olson. I remain unconvinced that, for all the information he has helpfully gathered, he has correctly identified what are the real causes and therefore how to address them. I add his central Powerpoint slides without comment. The argument is essentially that, if we don't act soon, there won't be any American church left, we'll continue the trend seen since, at least, the 1950's. To me it seems a little like saying, "The car won't run. It doesn't move forward. To remedy this, we need to give it a new paint job and better tires, because cars that run well usually have a good paint job and good tires." But maybe the problem is that it's out of gas. Gathering characteristics about the "stoppedness" of a car does not mean that you've understood WHY it has stopped. And if you don't understand that, any remedy will not do what the car really needs. Again this talk (which can hardly be called a sermon) was secondarily about Scripture (which is the perfect revelation--God telling us what is right with the church and what the church needs) and primarily about statistical compilation. And driven byh a dStill, Dr. Olson raises some good questions and, after all, the first disciples began their work of evangelizing the world not so much because they did what Jesus said, but because persecution kicked them out of Jerusalem and on their way. I look forward to reading and evaluating this book so at the center of the CCCC's direction in church redevelopment and planting.





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Tuesday in Iowa

The morning began with my first hearing of the teaching of Stuart Briscoe, pastor of the large Elmbrook Church which he pastored for over forty years. He has written over 40 books and is now heard on Telling the Truth Ministries's radio and internet broadcasts. Simply one of the best Bible teachers I've ever heard. His job was to each on the conference text Ephesians 4:16, which he did by pulling back to view it in the context of the whole book. He preached for over an hour, but no one knew it; he was compelling and had the congregation with him all the way. While there is so much to relate about this particular message, let me excerpt just a small section:

Ephesians 3:10—God’s intent is that the Church is to be an object lesson to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies—the invisible realm of spiritual reality—there are all kinds of rulers and authorities and God is running a seminar for them—he’s saying, Look at the church, and if you look at the church you’ll see a living breathing, pulsating demonstration of my work.

So on a Sunday morning—let’s pause to remember that we are on the screen—we are case study number 1—have you ever thought of yourselves like that?—People might actually get there early for church!

The rulers and authorities think they are winning in this world of ours, but they are not. The biggest evidence of this is the church. God is using us not only to show the principalities that they’re not as powerful as they thought they were, but also to show rulers and authorities that their days are numbered and they’re on the losing side. –You principalities try to keep Jews and Gentiles at each other’s throats. But I brought them together.

Do you realize what it means to be part of the church? If God can’t bring disparate people together, how can it be that he will bring the cosmos together, all things together under the Lordship of Christ? This is what the local group of believers are called to be in the environment in which you are placed. We are a message to a fragmenting, fractious society . . . Church is often as fragmented and fractious as the society around it . . .

I've appreciated much of the music for the conference. Last night a jazz flautist from this city played with a superb jazz pianist (he and Aaron would have gotten along well together . . . ) .

But, before that, I drove out to see a little of the surrounding area and to go to a grocery store. While I did see a variety of store names interesting, new, and Iowan, I also ran into a Christian bookstore of the type I was used to in Pennsylvania. BIG, too. Same sort of trinkets and stuff you'd find anywhere, though.

The evening talk was by a Dr. David T. Colson, who lives "across the lake" from our conference minister, Steve Gammon. He has compiled many statistics and compared them in new ways, and asks some interesting questions of churches. At this point, I'm a little skeptical, but I bought the book and want to listen carefully when he speaks again tomorrow night. The morning was a sermon, scripture driven and defined; the evening, not so much. But, that was not its goal and it leaves intriguing questions.
Two charts compiling some of his study: The first shows growth in American churches, grouping them by when the church was started. We are among the oldest churches in our conference. But, the point is that older churches aren't growing.
The second shows growth by size. Dr. Olson believes he has isolated the cause of the interesting leaps at both ends of the chart. Churches between 1 and 49 (to the left) have growth, because they have "intimacy." And churches at the other end, the megachurches, grow because they provide services well. You'll note that we, and most of American churches, are in the middle, the churches that are not growing. He says that these are the two critical poles: intimacy and doing ministry well (he may mean by this programs--not clear yet) determines whether a church grows. This is not at all clear to me, and I wonder, having not read his book yet, whether he may have left out a lot of other variables in his selection. One hears so many "answers" for the church over the years, that one is tempted to be skeptical. He left us with two questions, from the last screen.
We have come to a time when the "easy pickings" are no longer there, people who are prepared by their culture to come to Christ. There needs to be a new way of thinking about evangelism. And that has set me to thinking.
Well, one of the best things about these conferences, as I have already said, is to pray and think and reflect while away from the immediate fires of ministry. A valuable and challenging and thoughtful time with pastors and people with whom I've stood for over 20 years.

A mostly uneventful day of travel, with Deb and I dropping Kyle off for his week with our beloved brothers and sisters at the Bronx Household of Faith. I envy him a little, but I find myself very thankful that God has me exactly where He has me today. It was good to be lifted above all the many details and see things from a different perspective. See the many yachts in the waters after we took off? (you may need to double-click on the picture to see it large enough--it was spectacular).

The pilot told us a bit later that "Now you can tell the folks back home that you went over Niagara Falls," But I was on the wrong side of the plane.

The terrain began to change, but the cloud structures were dazzling. Down

below began to look more and more like the Lancaster County (PA!) of my youth.

The corn was as high as an elep . . .

well, it really was, and lots of it. The airport at Cedar Rapids was pretty small with few being picked up.

Here is the banner the greeted me in the main hall where we have all our meetings. The hotel and convention center are in downtown Waterloo. I heard someone say, "I've never seen such wide streets with so few cars." The theme this year is close to the theme of the year I wrote, "A Love that Grows . . . " as the theme song for the conference held at Gordon College.

The opening message (about an hour and some) was by our conference minister, Steve Gammon. To my mind, this was one of the best I've heard him give, stirring. His principle points were:

Whenever God calls us---WE ANSWER & LISTEN.

When God commands us---WE GO & DO & SAY.

Whoever God calls us with---WE LOVE & JOIN.

He closed by reminding us of the morning the church he was pastoring sent him off to serve as a chaplain in the Navy. He resolved to respond to the call of the Navy and prepared for one of his elders to preach that morning, Steve himself wearing his uniform. The elder said, "We are a team." (The elder was, of course, thinking of the Red Sox.) Every team has it's star players, and Steve has been one of those. But he's not the team. We're all the team. I want to tell you today that I'm ready to get off the bench and take my bat and my glove to do my part. This is no time to be a spectator."