Struggles that small Wesleyan Churches face in SC

I am living dangerously now.  Yep, you saw the title and know that this is going to be a debatable opinion.  Remember, it is my opinion.  I am not a researcher and I am not a big name.  So read it and know that these are my thoughts.

First, let me acknowledge that we serve a powerful God who can accomplish anything through those whom He desires.  If He is able to work through our small Wesleyan church too. 

Here are some possible problems.

• South Carolina is Baptist and Presbyterian country.  Yes, it is true!  We serve the same God, Jesus Christ.  Can we say it?  There is church competition.  What I mean is that there are other churches who are financially well off that can offer many different ministries to their attendees.  Child care is huge.  Professional musicians.  Great speakers.  Many different specialized ministries.  Unlike our earlier Wesleyans, when these churches build a church, they mean it!  Their facilities are beautiful and useful.  They can accomadate large amounts of people and hold community services.  In other words, they can be of a huge service to the community.  Yes, that is important. 
• There are only 48-50 Wesleyan churches in the entire state.  The good news is that we are working to fix this by planting churches.  Our brothers and sisters in other denominations have understood this for a long time.  They have been able to acheive a partnership with each other that is really awesome and this is how they take care of each other.  This is what we must do too.  Some Wesleyan churches are doing this already.  Yet again, we are small in number and time is what we will also have to work with. 
• We have had bad press in the past.  Some have called us a cult.  Pleeeezze.  People are shocked when we talk about Sanctification and when we acknowledge that we do not believe that once you are saved that you cannot lose your salvation.  Sorry.  Free will overrides that.  Now, listen.  Okay, the last is a non-issue.  Really it is.  Holiness is, and it is in the other denominations too. 
• It seems that some of our churches have hidden themselves away from the communities.  We did not want to be around sin.  Big mistake!  As a result, a lot of people that I talk to have not heard of Wesleyans and do not know where our churches are.  This is tough on advertisement. 
• Most of our facilities are outdated.  This leaves most pastors and laymen to choose between being missional or contemporary.  I would like to be both. 
• A lot of our churches are missing several generations.  This makes it tough to build strong children’s and youth ministries.  When this happens finances tend to go toward building needs and upkeep. 
• I think all churches are facing this next problem.  Because we live in the Bible belt it is a tougher assignment to get people to attend church and serve.  Consider, it is more of a social statement to attend church than to come out of a passion for Christ.  God and Sundays are those things that many take part in only on Sundays and then leave what was heard at church.   People have gotten used to the idea that God has chosen them and gives them finances which confirms that He has chosen them.  People get used to this.  Then there  really isn’t a need for God because we have the resources to take care of whatever problems might arise.  This leads to entitlement.  Yet, those who don’t have anything, anyone, or realize that God cares will come to Jesus.  But, they never hear because we are always entertaining ourselves. 
• The really most frustrating problem that we struggle with is that we cannot hire full-time youth pastors to minister to children and teens.  This is really hard to stomach because here is our future.  Man!  We can have all of the best intentions in the world.  We can dream.  We can talk.  But, nothing is going to happen until we have faith in God and sacrifice.  To get to the next step on the ladder we have to believe in God and give to God.  It has to be a united effort. 
• Southern Wesleyan helps us by being here.  This school helps us to get our name out there and put everyone at ease that we are not a cult. 

Listen, Baptists, Wesleyans, and etc.  We are all in this together.  To my fellow Wesleyans.  We have got to be more involved in our communities.  We especially have to be stepping out into the waters that only God can get us through.  We cannot please Him until we allow God to lead us into waters that we cannot navigate which will cause us to turn to Him by faith.  We must begin giving our resources to the next generations because they do not know Christ yet.  He is pursuing them in a big way.  If we do not join Him in His pursuit, then some might say that we are committing spiritual abortion.

Sunday Recap

I need to change the title of these updates on Mondays.  I know. 

• I preached about the presentation of Christ in the Temple Sunday.  I think it went well.  It is not a Scripture that most Protestant churches use.  I thought it was important to note that Christ will divide people.  He always has and will until He returns.  Those of us who serve Jesus find out fast that our friends and families generally take the opposite view of Jesus and reject Him.  I also noted that the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus through God’s Word and obedient people and that those who seek Redemption should be told the Good News. 
• We had 53 people again!  Praise the Lord!  This is significant because we have been averaging over 50 since the November.  This is also tough since our sanctuary only seats approximately 48 comfortably! 
• At some point we will have to do something about the seating if we intend to grow.  And, I do. 
• Smith Chapel continues to be the norm by weekly demonstrating that “regular” attendees come 2 Sundays a month.  I heard that stat from a peer and cannot verify it.  But it sounds about right. 
• Our nursery is still going well and has been in use since we opened it up a couple of months ago.  It reminds me of the movie Field of Dreams, and the famous line, “Build it, and they will come.” 
• It was mentioned by a couple of treasurers that if anyone is looking for a place to donate a large sum of money that he or she can give to our church.  I know that this sounds like we are money hungry; and I struggled with it too.  Nevertheless, it is true.  “You have not because you ask not.”  We do have needs at our church and it seems that we should say something once in a while.  I will be preaching about Stewardship next Sunday, but it was already planned.  It should be remembered that God’s people are supposed to be givers.  So if there are needs we need to do our best to take care of them.   
• I continue to be grateful for our Assistant Pastor Jon Brady.  He does well organizing our services and creating our power points.  Good job Jon!
• We ended up Sunday night at Taco Bell with some of our youth.  I miss being a youth pastor sometimes.  Teenagers are fun, but can also be a handful.  Yet, if this ministry is going well it is the most rewarding. 

Disappointment

What a frustrating year for Dallas Cowboys’ fans.  Our team had the most pro bowl players on it.  I really thought about researching this season to say why I thought that the train came off the track.  I thought I could give some educated reason for the Dallas failure this year.  But I chose not to and am content to sit and stew over this senseless season. 

Everybody keeps asking Jerry Jones if he is going to fire Wade Philips and others.  Some say Tony Romo should be replaced.  Still, others say that Terrell Owens should be replaced.  I say that Jerry Jones made a mess of this season.  After all, he continues to delight himself by getting players who are full of themselves or can’t stay out of trouble.  Some of these players have been paid big money and simply have not produced. 

The bottom-line is that this season was a total failure by the entire team.  Jerry Jones owes the fans an apology.  I mean, what is going on?  Likely, that offensive problem is a split between Jason Garrett and Tony Romo.  Outside of that, this team was ridiculous this season. 

Somebody should write a book about the what is likely this organizations biggest let-down in the team’s history.  It could be about what not to do as a leader. 

Hats off to the Eagles.  I am rooting for them now.  McNabb has been through the ringer.  He is a good QB!  If the Eagles’ fans do not want him, I know a few teams that will take him.  I hope he wins the Super Bowl, if the Colts are out, this year and he leaves. 

Go Colts and Eagles!

Sunday Recap

This was the first Sunday that we were under 50 since October.  We had 45.  Again, this was with 15-18 “regulars” out.  We are gaining ground as a church.  This was our 4th Sunday of Advent.  We have been reading Scripture from the Lectionary that follows the Church calendar.  It has been good to have formal worship during this season of Advent.  It is a nice change. 

We had modern special music today.  In other words, the solo music was modern.  This was a nice change. 

My message was about Pure Faith.  It came from Luke 1:26-44.  I wanted our church to know that this passage was about a young lady who surrendered to God’s will.  So many Christians today choose to focus on their appearance as those who are Holy.  In other words, we just want to look like we are good Christians.  Yet, God wants to teach us about trust in Him.   

We Christians put a ceiling upon our growth in the Lord when simply focus on looking like good Christians.  God wants us to learn to believe in Him and His supremacy.  Not many Christians are willing to step away from the plans that they have to take part in God’s salvific will for humanity.  What a risk it was for Mary to say yes to God’s will to have the Child while only engaged.  Not many would accept that hard road that God marked out for her! 

Pure Faithdemands obedience and trust.  It is allowing ourselves to be used by God as He desires because He has been given Lordship over our lives.  I wonder how many would give up their goals to allow God to put them in a tough spot so that they would learn to live by faith in Him, and so that He could demonstrate His salvific will through them at the same time? 

Living by faith is where all gimmicks end.  It is where getting to know God starts.  All masks are taken off, and transparency is left.  Trust in God is the true hope of the soul.  Trust in God leads to salvation.

Some more truths in this passage but not all.

• A woman is used by God to take part in God’s great salvific plan.
• A young person throws caution into the wind and agrees to yeild her life to God. 
• Human plans are changed so that God’s become more important and expedient.
• God did major work outside of the Temple in an unlikely place. 
• God did not use a rich girl to accomplish His will.
• The Virgin Birth is affirmed.
• A desire for God’s will to be done is seen instead of a desire for human will to be done.
• The Deity of Christ is established along with His Humanness.
• The Spirit’s coming on people who surrender to God’s will is seen. 
• God is not limited in what He can do.

Let’s allow God to have His way with us as we take part in plan to save and redeem everyone and everything in the world.

Missional Small Church

How does a small church become missional?  This is a question many small church pastors might ask.  This is also a question that many witnesses for Christ might ask also.  While at New Life Wesleyan Church, we were missional in the late 90’s, and they still are.  This is where we focused on a ministry called the ROCK, Reclaiming Our Community’s Kids.  Our goal was to be Jesus, otherwise known as be Incarnational, to children. 

What each church should know is that each church is different.  We are different because God sets every mission up.  In other words, he creates the opportunities while preparing the church that already exists and while sending new lay people in to take part in the mission.  God goes before because He prepares the way, and God’s people must respond to His lead.  Duh!  We have heard that before.  Yet, what does it look like when God is leading you to a specific mission?

God uses frustration over injustices.  He breaks hearts.  Here is what frustrated our church and broke our hearts which brought us to action and this is what our mission looked like. 

Our community’s kids were not recieving proper love from the adults in their lives.  These kids were struggling with school, social skills, and having adequate clothing and a home.  Our kids did not have any adult in their life to create the sense of being valued.  They were not being heard.  Some were staying in multiple houses and where they stayed depended on where the party was the night before.  Some kids’ parents were working multiple jobs which meant they were too worn out to do things with them, or even cook supper at night.  In other words, our kids were too worried about what they needed to live in this life to learn another Vacation Bible School story about Jesus in the next. 

Notice that I said, “Our kids.”  You have to look at God’s children that way.  You have to own or take responsibility for the mission.  Plus, our goal was to let them know that Jesus wants to be part of their lives in this life.  Lordship now is what they needed too, on top of the sinner’s prayer to escape hell when they die.  Jesus wants to  be known now as the God who is with us. 

To other churches, mission may start to take root from frustration that some in the church might feel about any type of injustice that they see in the community.  This becomes the seed of something great.  Think about it.  If Christ’s people are frustrated about any type of injustice, then there is a huge chance that the Spirit of God is spurring that frustration so that we will get burdened enough to move. 

Next, someone needs to talk about a practical Jesus way of dealing with the injustice.  Practical means finding a way to be the hands and feet of Christ while sharing the Gospel.  One without the other won’t do.  They must be happen jointly.  This ministry must not be one that is duplicated from what someone else is doing.  A better way to say that is the ministry or mission should not be developed because someone else, who seems successful from doing that type of ministry, is doing it.  It is a ministry that should meet two requirements.  One is that the ministry fits the community, or situation, like a glove.  Two is that the ministry will have to be accomplished by faith.  This is important for God to demonstrate His awesome power to individuals.  Why?  He wants to show those who are lost that Jesus Christ is the answer.  But . . . He also wants to demonstrate His power to the individuals in the church too!  This is faith education 101. 

You will know that you are on the right track when the needs to run this ministry are being met continuously, by those outside of the church, those who did not know that there was a need, and from people inside the church who are willing to do without luxuries, like never before, and give their money or time.   This is when you are able to see God working.  This is when the church is supposed to join Him.  Joining God in His work is the only way to success.  God is missional and this is why His Church is led to be missional. 

Finally, for small churches, the mission might consume the entire focus of the church.  It may be all that the church will do.  Being missional is not necessarily a way to achieve growth.  Instead, it is how we introduce others to Christ.  When we expect to grow numerically from this mission or ministry, this is when we begin to get discouraged.  Pastors and lay people listen to me, “It is not about receiving, it is about sacrificing.”  Being missional will have a heavy work load for pastors and the men and women who attend church with a light pay off.  In other words, the pay off may be something different than what one might expect.  There will be a huge pay off in Heaven because people will receive Christ as their Savior, but it may not have anything to do with building a mega-church here on earth.

Christian Kings and Queens

Sunday night after church and attending a recieving of friends service at local funeral home, my wife and I took our kids to a local McDonalds to get a quick bite to eat.  You cannot seem to do better than the McDonald’s dollar menu:)  It was around 9 pm.  This was important since Mickey D’s is a frequent stop for Christians after Sunday night church.  It has been since Acts 29.  That is a joke for those who are searching for that chapter of Acts.  So my wife an I thought we would be safe to go in.  Not!

First, to all the fast food employees out there  I want to thank you for a couple of things while I apologize to you for as many things that I can think of.   I am sorry that Christians have not been polite to you while you work to serve us.  I am sorry that you have to experience someone arguing over a couple of pennies.  I am sorry if you have mistakenly given the wrong sandwichto us and then got told off instead of simply saying that this is the wrong sandwich.   I am sorry for the glares that you have had to endure from us because you had to cook our food properly so that we will not get sick from food poisoning.  I am sorry that we do not put our trash in the trash can after we are done.  This is because we think that you are not busy enough while waiting on an enormous line.  I am sorry that none of us tell you thank you for working hard to serve us.  I am sorry, if there is some type of misunderstanding, that some of us want to see the manager instead of saying don’t worry about it.  I am sorry for the noise that you have to endure while some of us eat like Homer Simpson and his family.  I am sorry that some of us tell you the tea and ice should be filled even though you have served an enormous amount of peolpe who numbered more than what the tea canisters and ice machine can physically handle without being filled. 

To customers who are not Christians and have stumbled in on our Sunday night ritual, I am sorry if some of us have been unfriendly to you.  If some of us have bumped into you or your children while our kids destroy the place.  I am sorry if some of us have stared at you because of the clothes you wore, long hair for men, tatoos, or cigarettes that some of smoke privately.  I guess I am saying that I am sorry on account of those Christians who are judgmental. 

That is all I can think of for now, but I am sure there is more that we Christians should apologize for. 

Sunday night I experienced rude customers who were sitting at tables and booths even though they had been done eating for a while.  There was not a place to sit down.  I saw one family holding their food while waiting for a table to open up.  While this was going on, there were two kids sitting at a booth using abrasive language and throwing stuff at each other while yelling at the top of their lungs for 20 minutes that I know of.  Nobody made them mind, nobody made them move, even though a family stood with their food in their hands.  We were just going to change our order into a to-go order when an employee seemed to have enough and just peered out into the dining area with a look that said c’mon man!  Finally, one family gave up their spot for the family who was standing with their food.  My family got lucky too, because in the midst of the chaos there was a table with a bunch of trash left on it.  All I had to do was throw it away for the last person. 

This experience has caused me to think about what the Christian witness looks like.  How did we go from servants to kings and queens?  What would happen if we gave up our royalty decided to sweep up one Sunday night?  Don’t respond to this article saying that nobody works on the Sabbath either.  What if we gave up our royalty and treated customers and fast food employees, or other people in the field of service, with respect?  Wait a minute.  I think that is what Jesus did. 

How many of those Christians just attended a service and being a servant to others was a topic?  I bet they told the pastor “Amen!”  It is strange that we Christians are in the middle of celebrating the Advent and this season of giving, and this week in particular we are celebrating the Joy of being a witness for Jesus Christ.

Sunday Recap

We had another good service this morning.  Our choir and worship leaders did well this morning.  There was a sweetness in our service this morning. 

We put out our information rack this morning and were able to present our information and other literature in an organized way.  It looks good in our foyer.  This makes our newsletter and bulletins, which look very up to date courtesy of Pastor Jon, look snazzy.   

We had 50 in attendance this morning.  Again, if all of our people were not sick, or missing in action, we would be around 65.  This is good. 

Our nursery is still going.  Plus, we need to figure out how to minister to the children better; because we actually have a need to now!  We are going to have to put some money out to get our facility up to snuff for our kids; period.   We are slowly coming to life with younger people. 

If our attendance was around 65 every Sunday, believe it or not, we would likely have to move out to our fellowship hall or go to 2 services.  We have a small sanctuary if you have never been to our church. 

Our evening service was good too.  Not only was I able to avoid watching the Dallas Cowboys defeat by the Steelers, but we had a special speaker who came and reminded us that we Christians must continue to stand against abortion.  It is true that there other issues that should be focused on, but this is still important too.  All sin and disobedience to God needs to dealt with. 

Our speaker, Wesley Wilson of Let Her Live Ministries, talked about some of his experiences of counseling with young ladies who are pregnant and are seeking an abortion.  Some are not only brought in, and pushed to get an abortion, but are strongly influenced to by their boyfriends, parents, and grandparents!  Listen, this is unfair!  Those young girls have to live with that decision for the rest of their lives! 

While we attempt to grow our churches it is important that we do not lose sight of our call to confront sin.

Sunday Recap

We had another good service Sunday.  We took part in the first Sunday of Advent.  I love celebrating Christ’s birth while knowing that He will return again.

• 51 in attendance!  However, at least 15 “regulars” out again.
• A lot of people were sick.  There is a virus going around.  My wife was sick too.
• We had 3 babies in our nursery!  We just started our nursery a couple of months ago!  This demonstrates that sometimes we have to get ready by faith and God will do the rest.
• We had a younger group in Sunday school.  The ages for our class was 18-27.  There 5 people who are this age who were there.  This is part of that missing generation that we have struggled to reach.  Praise the Lord!
• Our worship format was good.  But we are going to have to tweak it a little to fix some holes.  It was different.  We had readings from the Lectionary and songs that went with the theme of Expectation.
• It was the last worship service that I will take part in while in my thirties. 
• Sunday night we had singspiration with another church and some other Christians.  After this service, we had fellowship and snack food in the fellowship hall. 

Things are rolling at Smith Chapel Wesleyan