““You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
- Matthew 5:13-16
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:
“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
- 2 Corinthians 9:6-11
Retracing Our Steps
Two weeks ago, I preached on how it is that you should rightly understand your lives in relation to money. Briefly, all that you have is God’s, and he has designated you as a steward of those things in your realm. Your right relationship with God depends upon submitting all you are and have to him. Or, as Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The Lord has entrusted each of our members with differing amounts of wealth and potential. If the church is rightly proclaiming Christ and him crucified, and if we have true disciples in our midst, then we will overflow with financial and other resources despite our small size. This all depends upon your right understanding of yourselves and of the nature of the church. If you do not see yourselves as Christ’s peculiar people, and if you do not see the church as the bride of Christ, then you will not feel as though the way you share your money with this church matters. It is my role as pastor to continue making the case for your discipleship and right participation in the church.
Last week, I preached on the context of Nowata. After ten years of ministry here, I cannot help but feel like I understand a good deal of the different forces at play here. I worked to describe our mission field here in ways that you could understand and share with me. As was made clear last week, we are living and called to work in a context of great spiritual darkness and decay. There is much working against us. Even so, the Holy Spirit is stronger than any worldly force. If we are submitting to his guidance and lordship, then we will prosper and succeed. Indeed, we do not have any other choice. It was for such a time as this that God has raised us up. We should not be dismayed or intimidated by our enemies. We must trust that God will prevail through us.
If we rightly understand ourselves, the church, and the Holy Spirit, then we should be committed to a shared way of life aimed at the salvation of the world immediately around us. To rehearse some basic realities of our ministry context that I laid out last week:
Addiction is very common, tearing people and families apart.
The destruction of the family and normalization of “alternative” family arrangements is increasingly common, such that our children are increasingly damaged.
Folks are retreating into their homes, withdrawing from voluntary associations, getting narcissistic and warped.
People commonly spend their money and worship in other counties, neglecting Nowata businesses and churches.
The community of Nowata fills itself with diversions and distractions so that it doesn’t have to ask bigger questions and seek bigger answers that only the church has to offer.
Majority Religion in Nowata: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
Something I didn’t have time to talk about last week is the local religious orientation. At least half of the town is not tied at all to a covenant Christian community, otherwise known as a local church. Many are openly hostile to Christianity, or at least the institution of the local church. Some of these have been hurt by church in the past, but many of them have never been close to a church and carry many unfortunate stereotypes about Christ’s people.
As I talked about last week, a good number go to large churches in other towns. Most of these are large churches where they can attend irregularly and anonymously. Nowata has at least fourteen churches within city limits. A couple country churches exist. Perhaps three of these churches see more than 100 people in worship per week. On any given Sunday, I estimate that maybe only 20% of our town participates in worship in any capacity, including online, which doesn’t really come close to approximating what Christ has ordained for us to do.
The majority religion of this town is not actually Christianity. It is something called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It is a broad awareness of the fact that there is a God and he wants us to be moral and happy. A majority of people in this town will confess their belief in God, and maybe even in Jesus. Yet most of these will also eagerly confess that they think pretty much everyone who believes in God will go to heaven, and they see no problem whatsoever with the fact that they haven’t read their bibles, they are not an active part of a covenant community, and their lives aren’t any different from those around them. Most have no notion of holiness. That is the majority religion. It is the faith of demons: confessing that there is a God while living in ways that spurn him (James 2:19).
Local churches have largely been pressured into accommodating such a culture. A good deal of public outrage and offense is reserved for any churches that preach the exclusivity of Christ, the call to holiness, the reality of damnation and sin, or the requirement to be born again. In the age of social media, people who speak clearly on these things are routinely derided and scandalized online. Clergy and regular churchgoers have learned that they should not be too vocal about a high standards faith out in public, lest angry voices take exception to them.
The Attractional Model of Evangelism: A Dry Well
For that reason, our churches have largely adopted what would be called an “attractional” model of evangelism. They build programs that are attractive to consumers to get them through the doors. Youth groups, daycares, festivals and block parties, holiday meals, fundraisers, concerts, plays, addiction recovery groups—all these things are done to attract people. The hope is that people will come with a worldly hunger that can be fed, and in the meantime Jesus can be offered. A hypothetically successful church that does this will be able to do a sort of bait-and-switch for folks, where they will eventually come, not to have their worldly hungers filled, but God will develop within them a spiritual desire that is then met by the church. This is a model that our own church has also been inclined to use.
Yet the problems with this approach are twofold: 1) Other churches are much better positioned to do this sort of stuff than we are, and they are ahead of us, and 2) This approach doesn’t seem to work very well, anyway. The churches in town that utilize this strategy see lots of turnover. Moreover, these strategies are less and less effective. It gives the sense that churches are fighting for scraps. Moreover, just like government assistance breeds a generation of people who feel entitled to free money, churches that continually seek to attract and entertain worldly folks breed a generation of people who feel entitled to the church on their terms. Not good.
The Plan/Strategy
It is at this point that I will now finally deliver what was promised a couple of weeks ago: an answer to the question of how it is that our church can and should do ministry in this town. The reality is that we have already built out a strong foundation upon which to do the hard work required. The strategy, going forward, is: to remain firm in our witness in a town that largely has its ears stopped. We need to do hard labor, backbreaking work, removing stones from the Lord’s field and planting seeds of faith that lead to a future harvest.
I think the first thing to insist upon is that we will do faithful ministry in this town by requiring basic truths of the faith to be taught and believed: Sin defaces the image of God in us, separates us from him, and guarantees our damnation. The only source of hope for us is the person and work of Christ Jesus, who took our punishment as a substitute for us on the cross. He has sent us his Spirit to give us the new birth and teach and empower us in matters of holiness. The purpose of all of our lives is to love and serve God and one another continually. The church has been established by Christ to call sinners to repentance, to serve as a mission outpost for Christ, to collectively walk in newness of life and equip the saints for ministry. We need to insist on that way of life, that unique call, at the front, middle, and end of everything, refusing to capitulate to the spirit of the age or the felt consumer desires of worldly people. We aren’t here for worldly people. We are here for those whom Christ is calling out of the world. I need to continue to make the case for that. You need to continue submitting to that.
Secondly, we have to get a mindset for the long term and the small victories. The reality is that we are doing this planting in hostile and indifferent terrain. Drugs, entertainment, and propaganda have a majority of folks in our society convinced that they don’t need Jesus in any biblical sense. Our job is to maintain our spiritual saltiness so that, when individuals here are awoken from their stupor, and God gives them a sincere desire to flee from the wrath to come and be saved from their sins, there will be a community right here that can instruct them in an alternative way of life marked by Christian scripture and history.
Foundations Already Laid
We have promising signs for the future in this community: young families with small children that will be raised together partnered with other folks of means who can establish a firm foundation for them.
The church has already established an endowment fund in perpetuity for the church. The principle amount cannot be touched, and it pays out 5% annually for our mission. As that fund continues to grow, this church’s baseline ministry is magnified. Folks in our church should continue to give to this fund, not only as memorial gifts in memory of those who have passed, but you should also be putting this fund as a gift in your wills and trusts. The local church should be a body that honors the legacy of those who came before, and we who are alive now should designate our gifts in order to ensure future thriving of this community when they have younger or fewer members who cannot otherwise sustain the required community. We have to continue being good stewards of the resources we already have, not blowing our wealth on things that do not bear fruit, but serving as faithful and benevolent witnesses to our God who blesses abundantly.
Other churches in town are already catering to a lowest-common-denominator way of life, a lukewarm and undemanding form of discipleship. If we participate in that race to the bottom, we will lose. The town will lose. Christ doesn’t save those who are aiming to do the bear minimum to be saved. We need to continue to insist on an ethos of high standards and demanding discipleship. When folks awake out of their stupor and sin, they need to find a community that 1) knows what is in their bibles, and 2) is successfully conforming their lives to it.
This begins with raising up a new generation of godly men and women who are unapologetically raising up their children to be true disciples. Men who are loving their wives as Christ loves his church. Women who are joyfully partnering with and submitting to their husbands’ godly leadership. Children who aren’t addicted to screens and junk food, but who are being raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord at home, participating in the lifeblood of the worshiping community here. Just a few of these family units will be enough to do great work for the Kingdom of God here in Nowata. Older folks, it is your job to pray for and support these younger families as they strive in this direction. Younger folks, it is your job to actually prioritize holiness and faithfulness above all things, insisting on godliness in your home. The integrity of our church depends upon your submission to Christ.
Our true holiness comes first, but it then proceeds out into the community. The church needs to find effective means of making contact with sinners whom the Lord is calling to repentance. We already have some of this foundation built up in two ways: 1) we have a strong online ministry, and 2) we have extra land in proximity to the church.
Online Ministry
People generally do not gather gather in public squares in the modern world. Rather, the public square is Facebook, YouTube, and various other social media platforms. Our church is already present and active on a few of them. The result is that we already receive between $1K and $2K per month from outside supporters who have been touched by our church’s online ministry. As we continue to grow in our capabilities and knowhow, we will be able to much more effectively target people in town who go to these outlets. We can essentially have a firm presence in the public square of our town.
Land
We are also sitting on a good deal of undeveloped land, one parcel to the northeast and another to the west. This can be used in many ways, but the way I imagine it’ll need to be used is to house people. Those of you who follow my podcast know that I recently interviewed a Nigerian scholar named Chinyere Priest, who is publishing on how to effectively move people out of Islam and into the the true Christian faith. It took me some time to understand that, when a person has been raised in a radically different tradition, it is very difficult to learn to live in a different way, with Christ as Lord. Oftentimes, people need to actually get space from the people and places they are daily attached to. If they cannot discover a new life in Christ, then they go back to the old way. That means churches that want to effectively provide for people to follow Christ need to have the means to provide a different space for them to learn and grow. If the church cannot offer alternative housing, at least on a temporary basis, then we will be very limited in our ability to free people from former ways of life. Essentially I’m saying that both physical and relational infrastructure is needed.
Because our culture no longer feeds into the church. Folks born in the US no longer see themselves as Christians by default, and they generally do not feel obligated to learn about the God who built this nation. In a generation or two, the only churches still alive in our culture will be those who have created this hands-on discipleship infrastructure. Churches that stay surface level and do not get into people’s lives very deeply will become increasingly irrelevant.
Getting a Deacon
Speaking of relational infrastructure, I think effective ministry in this town will require a deacon. In Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles functioned as elders, responsible for teaching and preaching, administering the sacraments and administering the affairs of the church. That is my role today. When the need came for people commissioned with authority by the church for ministries of mercy and interpersonal care, the first order of deacons was established (Acts 6:1-7).
Once upon a time, a public ministry resulted in people coming in the doors on their own. That hasn’t been the case for some time. Rather, people representing the church need to be designated to go out to build personal relationships with sinners aimed at calling them to repentance. Now, this needs to be done by every member of the church. Each of us should be getting to know our neighbors, praying for them, caring for them, and making efforts to bring them to Christ. Yet that time- and energy-consuming work is slow going for those of us with full time jobs and family lives. If this church wants to have a presence in the schools, nursing homes, jail, on local boards, senior citizens center…if it wants to have folks going door-to-door and making contact with folks at local events and in the grocery store…then it will need more than me to effectively do it. I currently do some of these things, but I am also administering the church.
Interns
I am currently working to get interns. We have had interns in the past who were a blessing to the church. We can and should have them again. But I think we should also aim to have an elder and a deacon for the sake of proper ministry here in Nowata. One man cannot do what is required alone. I am an exceptionally productive pastor. If you look at how other pastors perform, I am doing much more than an average full-time pastor. Even so, I do not have the required time and energy to do the hard relationship-building work required to bring people close. I intend to keep going door-to-door, ministering to our people and visiting you at your homes, having you into my home. Even so, this will not be enough to make the new connections needed to bring significant numbers into the household of God. We need to have a larger presence in the community, and that comes only from manpower. The question is if our church will be bold enough to designate what we have for a push in that direction.
Exhortation to Step Up
Like anything else in life, the harvest will result from how much work you put into it on the front end. As our 2 Corinthians reading said, “those who sow generously will reap generously.” Unfortunately, the culture of most churches of this size in small rural locations like ours today is a model of subsistence living. Friends, people do not want to give to a sinking ship. They want to give to something with staying power, which is able to rightly discern itself and its role in the midst of uncertain times. I hope my preaching of late has conveyed the kind of leadership you have and the hope we have for future generations. If you choose to believe me and to act in accordance with the portrait I have painted, then we can intentionally lay a groundwork for a counterculture here that effectively targets the local culture and its sinners with a firm foundation, in which our resources have been marshaled for God’s glory.
There is a possibility of a church here in the future that is a solid and sturdy presence in the midst of an unstable life. In times of great social upheaval in medieval Europe, it was the church that was able to stand against cultural decline and provide a mission outpost in the wilderness, out of which came much flourishing in later generations. A few years ago, Rod Dreher published a book called ‘The Benedict Option,’ in which he argued that the church needed to retreat from society in order to preserve hope for later generations. Truth be told, I think that is where we are. I think the culture around us is so lost, so depraved, that we cannot engage it effectively in any larger sense. Rather than casting a wide net and getting large hauls, I think we can only fish with a rod, one at a time.
One can look at our church with worldly eyes and see much to be concerned about. One can see the smaller attendance and the lack of midweek discipleship, the examples of people who have gotten angry and left, or otherwise concluded that this church wasn’t for them, and conclude that this church is on its last legs.
But one could also look at the fact that a large number of the folks here were not here just a few years ago, and we have lost a large proportion of our members to death and relocation in previous years. The fact that we have maintained at all is quite something. One could take note of the young families that are committed to raising their children as Christians. One could take note of the respectable endowment fund, the land we own, the online presence we have, the solid pastoral leadership. After looking at these things, I think one would be sane to conclude that there is much to be hopeful about here.
Our country, our culture, has enough lukewarm local churches that talk a good game. But we aren’t called to “play church.” Life is short and a counterfeit church is a waste of everyone’s time. Rather than continuing forward the mainline social club norm popularized throughout our nation, I want to unapologetically pursue the zeal and commitment of the true church seen in previous generations. I would like to think that the Holy Spirit is likewise supplying you with such a hunger and yearning, such that more and more we find ourselves bound together in a fervent commitment to Christ through this local church.
Benediction
May this be known as a people who truly do love Christ first and prioritize his covenant body above the other competing loyalties in our lives. May the future community of Nowata have reason to remark at us: “Look how they love one another! Look how they actually live holy lives in our midst.” And then may the Lord draw them to himself through us.
That is my earnest prayer. And I pray you will join me in praying:
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