“What’s In It For Me?”

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Ministry, Theology

–October of 2002

“What’s In It For Me?”

Over the years I have interviewed a number of people for ministry positions.  Some as potential pastors and missionaries, others for a position here at the college.  I’ve made it a practice to listen very carefully for some form of the question, “What’s in it for me?”  I have found this to be a pivotal question that often reveals the kind of person who gives themselves only if there is an equal return to them.  They aren’t prepared to invest themselves in the lives of others for the sheer joy of making a difference.  They lack the servant spirit.

What this question reveals is becoming increasingly important as our American culture becomes more and more obsessed with materialism.  The quest for the larger house, the faster car, the more expensive wardrobe has become the pre-occupation of not only the general population but many in Christian ministry.  Given the fact of our economic prosperity, the pressure of contemporary culture, and the natural pull of a sinful heart, it’s too easy for a person today to become a creature obsessed with security and comfort, and incapable of throwing himself into a higher cause.

This dilemma is as old as sin itself.  Adam and Eve thought there was something more for them.  Lot’s lust for real estate in the Jordan Valley cost him more than he ever wanted to pay.  Paul addressed this problem from his jail cell in Rome.  He warned the Philippian Christians about those who preach Christ “out of envy and strife” (Phil. 1:15).  The word translated “strife” does not literally mean strife.  It’s the Greek word erithea and basically means a payment made to advance a person’s own interest.  Paul was describing those who preach the gospel for their own gain.  He told the Philippian church that the antidote to this self seeking was to have the mind of Christ — the attitude of soul that does nothing out of selfish ambition but finds joy in the opportunity to pour out one’s life for others.

Does the gospel offer deliverance from this self-serving focus?  It did for Timothy.  Paul told the Philippians that Timothy would “naturally care for your state” in contrast to those who seek their own interest.  It did for Paul.  Paul’s word to the Corinthian church was “for I am not in this job for what I can get out of it, but for what benefits I can bring to the many, that they may be saved” (Barclay’s translation).

Can grace so “re-orient” our hearts until the primary focus of our life is no longer our own but that of others?  Can we be truly cleansed from the question “what’s in it for me?”  The Bible makes it clear that we can.  As a matter of fact, it’s at the very heart of the gospel’s power to make us like Christ.

Selling the Gospel Short

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Church, Culture, Theology

–Summer of 2002

Selling the Gospel Short

Twenty years ago Francis Schaefer wrote about the Great Evangelical Disaster.  Recently Dr. Dennis Kinlaw addressed what could be called the Great Evangelical Reductionism.  The first sold the gospel out; the latter sells it short.  Both can bring about the same pitiful end.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the church was caught in the cross hairs of liberal theology.  Most of the large Protestant denominations were knocked down like a row of tenpins as liberal theology swept in like a flood.  The National Council of Churches reigned as the ecclesiastical power and liberal theologians held prominent positions as professors in the great seminaries.  The Bible was betrayed and the heart of the gospel was completely destroyed.  Within 30 years the sell-out was complete.  The gospel that was preached in most large protestant denominations was no gospel at all.

By mid century a despised marginal group of Bible believers known as evangelicals began to make their way to the forefront in America.  By the 1980’s the focus of power had clearly shifted from the mainstream denominations and liberal theologians to the more conservative evangelicals.  Today evangelicals have their own national association, speak on hundreds of radio and television programs, and control the theological positions of a large number of seminaries and Christian universities.  Evangelicals operate book enterprises that gross billions every year.  The president attends their annual prayer breakfast and prominent evangelical leaders weekend at the White House and council the president on religious matters.

Yet as the evangelical movement has grown in numbers and influence, the moral influence of the church has gotten weaken.  How could this be?  How could a church that has become more conservative theologically become less effected by that theology?

Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, in his book We Live as Christ, puts his finger on the problem.  He states, “I believe that part of the reason for the state of affairs is the way in which the evangelical church is presenting the gospel here in America.  We have engaged in a kind of reductionism of what we say Christ can do for us.  We have largely preached the gospel of Christ as a way to find freedom from the consequences of our sin rather than freedom from the sin that causes the consequences.”

The evangelical church in America has given the impression that the essence of the Christian message is forgiveness of sins and the assurance of Heaven.  They have failed to emphasis that the goal of the gospel is conformity to Christ.  This has produced an insidious easy believism that makes no moral demands and insists on no behavioral requirements.  It has separated faith from faithfulness and offered a brand of commitment with no cross.  Sadly the holiness movement has begun to parrot the same line.

Dr. John Oswalt speaks to this issue in his book Called to be Holy.  He says, “The Christian gospel is not primarily about having one’s sins forgiven and spending a blissful eternity with God after somehow getting through this life with one’s faith reasonably intact.  The purpose of the gospel is the same that God has had from Genesis 4 onward:  The transformation of human behavior in this world with a consequent possibility of living with God through all eternity.”

The New Testament gospel is inseparably linked to repentance, surrender, a supernatural eagerness to obey, and an inner hunger for moral goodness.  Anything less is not true biblical conversion and denies the message of the gospel.  But the gospel offers more.  The gospel offers freedom from the tyranny of sin and self.

The gospel does offer freedom from sin’s penalty and a home in heaven.  But it also offers freedom from sin’s tyranny and a life of holiness.  This is good news, indeed!

The Face of Revival

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Church, Theology

–Summer of 2002

The Face of Revival

In a recent conversation with a student, I was asked this question.  “What does revival look like?”  The question grew out of the student’s frustration on the fact that she had heard messages on revival, messages that spoke of our need for revival, and the results of revival, but had never really given her something solid so that she could recognize the beginnings of revival.

As I began to think about that question, it dawned on me that many of us might miss the beginning of revival because we are looking for the wrong thing.  Too often we dress revival up in the clothes of supernatural phenomenon or other forms of Divine visitation, when really revival will first come to us dressed in sackcloth and ashes.  When God gave Solomon the process to find personal and national revival, it began with a call to humility.  “If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves…”

What Does Humility Look Like?

Andrew Murray in his classic work on humility, states, “Humility is the place of entire dependence on God and is by its very nature the first duty and the highest virtue of man.  It is simply man’s acknowledging the truth of his position as man in yielding to God His place as God.”  Another church father said it like this, “Humility is the frame of mind a man possesses who is fully aware of his nothingness apart from God and of his sinfulness that would eternally separate him from God were not God willing to rescue him.”  Humility does not imply a slavishness or servility.  Nor is it inconsistent with a right estimation of one’s self, gifts and calling of God.  Nor with a proper self assertion when called for.  True humility is, indeed, the frame of mind that a man possesses whereby he understands his total dependence upon God for all that he is and does.

Are We People of Humility?

Being clothed with humility, as Saint Peter admonishes, is a concept that most of us haven’t considered.  We do not think of humility as a dominant characteristic of today’s successful person.  Most church members and even many church leaders are not known for their humility, but for their self reliance, self sufficiency, and self confidence.  Those seem to be traits that fit well within the sociological and political scheme of things.  So we value them rather than valuing what the Bible calls humility.  It might even be said that many in the church have an aversion to humility.  Some erroneously see it as a weakness.  One of those traits if possessed too much might even hinder a man getting along in life.

Is Humility Important to Revival?

The answer is quite easy.  There can be no revival without first a spirit of humility gripping the church.  It is out of a spirit of humility that all the other attributes of revival flow.

Will God Humble Us?

 When we set our hearts to seeking God for revival, we are actually asking God to humble us.  The evidence that He is answering our prayer for revival can be seen in the way that He chooses to humble His church.

In his book, Changed into His Image, Jim Berg lists four ways that God may choose to humble us.

First, He will send a problem we can’t handle to expose our helplessness.  Do you remember the story of Naaman in II Kings?  A high-ranking Syrian official who needed healing from his leprosy could not accept the humility of meeting only with the second man and then being told to wash in the muddy Jordan River.  But Naaman was confronted with a problem that would not go away until he humbled himself and did what God commanded.

The second way God humbles us is to give us a command we won’t obey so as to expose our self-centeredness.   Do you remember the Prophet named Jonah?  God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh, and Jonah simply wouldn’t go.  The end result being, Jonah got a real glimpse of his self-centered and selfish heart.

The third way is for God to arrange an outcome we can’t control to expose our sinfulness.  Do you remember when King David took Bathsheba into his bedchamber for an evening of pleasure, only to send her back home thinking no one would ever know?  When word came back from Bathsheba that she was pregnant, David knew he had a problem on his hands that he couldn’t control.  He tried to desperately corral it and deal with it, but it was beyond his control, and God intended it to be that way.  David needed to see his own sinfulness.

The fourth way is that He will show us a God we can’t comprehend to expose our finiteness.  Job was no doubt a good man.  God Himself testified to such.  But Job needed a lesson in humility so that he could understand that God Himself is beyond our human understanding.

When you and I begin to pray for revival and when we begin to look about for signs of that revival, we should not be shocked if the first face we see is not pleasant but one that humbles all of us.

It’s the Pitch of the Tent

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living

–May of 2002

It’s the Pitch of the Tent

“And Lot…pitched his tent toward Sodom.”

We are all in a constant state of movement.  Ask any parent and they will tell you their tumbling little toddler is running rapidly toward becoming a towering adult.  Ask any teacher and they will tell you that the first grader struggling to read small words and add simple figures will someday be reading the classics and doing calculus.  On the other hand, ask the doctor about aging, and he will tell you that we are moving away from strength to weakness, and from life to death.  For the Christian, Paul says we are, “being changed from glory to glory.”  (II Cor. 3:18)

We are all in the process of becoming.  We have moved from what we were and are now moving toward what we shall be.  The troubling thought about this is not that we are moving, but what we are moving toward.  Life refuses to let us be still.  We are either ascending or descending, mounting up or sinking down.

An important question in this process is, “What determines our direction?”  A.W. Tozer said, “We are becoming what we love.  We are to a large degree the sum of our loves and we will of moral necessity grow into the image of what we love most.”

No wonder the greatest commandment in the Bible is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  (Matt. 22:37)  Jesus infers this in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “Where your treasure is, there will be your heart be also.”  (Matt. 6:21)

You and I are being molded by our affinities and shaped by the things we love.  This is the reason behind Lot’s tragedy.  He held an affinity for the well-watered plains of Jordan and ended up a resident ruler in Sodom.  The closing scene of Lot’s life is a portrait of drunkenness and incest.  How did he get there?  He had his heart set on the wrong thing.

The law of moral affinity will either shape our life into a vessel of honor or else will mold us into something twisted and evil.  Both Jezebel and Judas were at one time pink-cheeked innocent children, but they set their affections on the wrong things and were carried down stream by a moral undertow.  There is no middle ground.  Its not where you are this moment, it is where you’re moving.  It is the “pitch of the tent.”  Just ask Lot!

A Time for Change

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Ministry

–April of 2002

A Time for Change

Spring is the season of promised change.  Nature changes its dull lifeless winter garb for a majestic robe of dazzling color.  Fresh life pushes back the old and newness abounds everywhere.  Nature certainly has no monopoly on change in the months of April and May.  It is also the time of year that ministers all across the country begin to ask themselves the question, “Is it time for me to make a change?”  Church members, too, begin to hold their own private discussions about the “recall vote”.  Though this process happens every year in thousands of churches and has been experienced by thousands of preachers, it still remains one of the toughest issues pastors and conference leaders face.

Is it really that difficult to know if the pastor should stay or go?  One church leader put it like this, “It really is quite easy to derive the right answer as to whether a pastor should move or not, if you could remove all the emotional issues that surround it.  Things like home, family, friends and financial security.  All these make it very difficult to face up to any change that we know ought to be made.”

 When Should I Consider Leaving?

 1. When I know that my ministry and leadership are no longer effective. 

An effective ministry must be earned, but it is also given to us by those who willingly follow.  When you reach the place where people are no longer following, you are, in effect, no longer leading.  When you are no longer leading, you can’t take the church where it needs to go no matter how capable you are.  When your effectiveness is gone, the platform upon which you build your preaching ministry is gone.  Your sermons may still be well prepared and clear, but they will not strike with force or accomplish their purpose.

2. When I no longer have a vision or a burden for the church. 

When a man has no burden for the work at hand, when he ceases to dream about the future of his church, it is time to go!  God pity the church which must endure a pastor with no passion for his ministry.  The loss of a vision for your church becomes transparent in your conversation, administration and preaching.  The joy and excitement of special days are gone.  New ideas and approaches are a bother.  You have no conscious strategy to build up the work.  You can’t minister effectively without passion and vision.

3. When I realize that the church and I are no longer philosophically compatible. 

Are you on the same wave length with the people you serve?  Have you outgrown them?  Have they outgrown you?  Do the two of you still see ministry in the same light?  Are your goals and methods in agreement?  Have you made a change in values and beliefs that the church still holds dear or vice verse?  If so, it is time to go.

4. When you sense that your work is finished. 

God clearly sends some men to churches for a specific task.  To stay beyond the completion of that task is to tear down what you built up.  To remain and try to do or redo what you have already done, is to heap frustration upon the heads of your people as well as your own.

5. When I know that my credibility isn’t strong enough to stay. 

Credibility is essential to ministry.  You may not have done any intentional wrong and yet problems have eroded your credibility among the people.  As a matter of fact, it may have been someone else’s fault altogether.  Nevertheless, you still can’t minister without the confidence of the people.

6. When I know I am no longer willing to make the necessary sacrifices to see this church grow. 

Somebody has to pay the price for church growth.  You can pontificate all day long about lazy laymen, and it may be true, but nothing will build your church but hard work.  If you aren’t willing to give the leadership, expend the energy and make the necessary sacrifices for growth, it is time for you to go.

7. When I would leave if I had some other place to go. 

Many pastors and leaders would move in a heartbeat if another church or ministry would call, or if another church would call that could offer an equal financial package.  In other words, they are only staying because they don’t have any place to go.  I’ve watched men of God leave churches when they knew it was time to go and have to take secular employment to make it.  They may have lost a parsonage and a pulpit for a while, but they certainly kept their integrity and honesty with God and the church.

8. When my attitude is no longer positive about my present church. 

If you can’t feel good about your work and if your attitude is bad about the church – move!

 How Do I Know Where To Go?

 Obviously, we must seek clear leadership from the Spirit of God.  But, there are some practical things that will help confirm the mind of God in us.

1. Does my social and cultural background fit this church? 

Don’t give this point a religious snub.  Disaster follows the man who goes into a situation that is out of the cultural and social context of his own ministry.  The people will pick him apart, and he will begin to preach at them rather than to them.  Conflict is only a matter of time.  Take heed here!  Finding the right fit in this area has launched some of the most long-term and successful ministries.

2. Do my particular gifts and skills fit the needs of this congregation? 

When a man whose ministry style is prophetic, evangelistic, and seeker-oriented, is placed into a situation that needs a healer, the effect is the same as rubbing sandpaper on an open sore.  On the other hand, when a man who is a healer goes into a situation that needs a shaker and mover, frustration will abound.  A good understanding of your skills and limitations coupled with a good understanding of what a church needs will alleviate many heartaches.

3. Do I agree with these people in doctrine and practice?  Do we share similar views concerning the pastor’s role in ministry?

Find out some things about the church up front.  Don’t go in with a hidden agenda and think you will change it.  You may only end up splitting it.  Make sure you understanding and agree with their expectations of your ministry.

4. Has God confirmed this change through providence, common sense, and conviction? 

Ultimately, the inner conviction given by the Holy Spirit that our going or coming is the right thing to do will be what gives us a sense of peace and clarity in any change.  Yet, don’t let personal matters and fears drown His voice.  Don’t ignore some practical facts that are clear to everyone else.  If need be, pray for moving grace, or staying grace, whatever the occasion demands.

What If I Know I Need to Leave the Church, But Moving Seems Bad for My Family?

I’ve watched both sides of this question play out.  One pastor left an idealistic country setting and moved to a large city.  The timing seemed disastrous for his teenage children, but it proved, rather, to be their salvation.  Another pastor left his church and relocated nearby to maintain educational continuity and friends for his teenagers.  He had to leave pastoral ministry for a few years, but he kept a stable environment around his children at a crucial time in their lives and saved his family.  I believe God’s will for a pastor and what is best for his family can be one and the same if we will just have the courage to do and follow God’s leadership.

Whatever you do, make sure you do not short circuit the Kingdom of God by holding on when you ought to let go, or by letting go when you ought to hold on.  Change has been the fresh wind under many a tired pastor’s wings.  It has also been the salvation of many a failing church.