Losing sight of the best whilst looking at the good.

Let me set out before anything else that our church sings hymns accompanied by piano and violin, and I am in now way endorsing the movement to "modern music" in churches simply for the sake of being "relevant".
I do think that there can be songs written in recent times that are absolutely acceptable for Godly worship. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but the "Olden days writers" did not have a monopoly on true spirituality. And of course there is a lot of rubbish which is passed off as "Christian worship music".

With that laid out at the start, I want to address something that I have noticed in recent times: a heavy focus on Church music, making sure it is "right", and warning at every point of the way that "bad music choices lead to forsaking right Doctrine".
I agree with the general premise of that, but I wonder if some of the problem is that people are making up complex and technical standards for "right music" which quite frankly just baffle the average person, and at the same time NOT warning these people to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God".

There are two basic issues that I see with this approach:

• With the complexity of the musical standards, there is no genuine way for the "layman" to check if the standard is biblical, so the argument basically falls to "You may not understand it but I have done the study so you should just trust me". Forgive me for this, but that is exactly why the Catholics wanted to keep the Bible in Latin all those years ago - so that the poor old regular man would have to trust the "experts". 

I for one believe that God has made His Word understandable for the average man, and if something like this is so complex that only a musical expert can understand it, then I seriously doubt it is biblical. It drives many to just say, "if it is so hard to understand, then I just won't even bother to try, and I will just listen to whatever I want". The "technical boundaries" that some put up are incomprehensible to many, and so they just give up on the whole matter. It is basically saying to these people that they are not smart enough to understand God's Word, so they just give up trying.

What you end up with are people who simply listen to whatever they want OR whatever they are told, but they don't bother to study the Word of God about it.

This argument is in fact teaching people to either accept whatever they are told by the "experts" or to ignore whatever they are told by the "experts" but NOT TO STUDY THE WORD OF GOD for themselves.

In my mind I think we should set out what we perceive as Biblical standards for any issue, but we should teach people to study for themselves.

• The second issue is that some appear to spend so much time warning about the "slippery slope" effect etc, that they forget to teach strong doctrine, and they forget to warn others about having strong doctrine. It is sort like they are yelling so loud about "Right music" that nobody notices the wolves sneaking quietly in while everyone is distracted by the "Music issue".

I think it is entirely possible for a church to accept much of this music AND STILL retain a strong doctrinal position. I think it is incredibly difficult, and most probably very unlikely, but I don't see anywhere in Scripture where it states plainly that right music leads to right doctrine and wrong music leads to wrong doctrine. 

I DO think we see it happen often, but I wonder if it is partly because the warnings are about wrong music, and while everyone is concentrating on the music the false teachers sneak the bad doctrine in the side door.

Don't ignore the warnings, and the encouragement on doctrine. Doctrines are after all fairly well defined in the Bible.

I have been studying through the seven churches of Revelation lately, and I don't recall any warnings about music to any of these seven churches,but almost all of them are warned on doctrine in some way, or encouraged to stay strong on doctrine.

If music was itself inherently important in such matters, then I would expect it make the list of warnings to these seven churches.

There absolutely is instruction on music - I am not a denier. I just wonder if ALONG WITH the warnings about right music, we ought to also be making AT LEAST as much noise warning these people to jealously guard their doctrine while they consider their music.

I think  maybe some are putting too much emphasis on the wrong focus point.

Blackmailing Missionaries for the percieved faults of their sending church?

(I wrote this some months ago, and never posted it because I felt I maybe overstepped the mark a little, but I have recently heard of another missionary who has been affected by this phenomenon, and so I am posting it now.)

Missionaries: how dare you treat them like that!

An exclamation mark, not a question mark.

I don’t want you to answer – I want you to feel rebuked.

For many Pastors and churches out there you will not feel any sting in what I have to say, for you are not the cause of my anger. Unfortunately those who should feel the sting will most likely put my name in their box marked “Do not touch with a barge pole”.

Yes, I am angry, and unfortunately while I think my anger is justified, I don’t feel my anger is in line with the Paul’s words in:

Eph_4:26  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

I am angry you see, and whilst it is justified in my mind, I am sure that my anger also has some sin in it. I will try to keep that sin away from this article, but what I have to say, I must say.

Missionaries are the ones who are actively living out the great commission in their daily lives. Yes, Pastors should be too. In fact every Christian should. Most of us don’t, at least not as well as we should, and I am sure there are some missionaries that also do not work for the Lord as well as they should.

But most missionaries have put everything on the line and given up their comfy lives back at home to take the Gospel to lost souls who need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ died for them, so that they might have a way of salvation.

Many of them rely on the financial support that is promised from “home churches”, but they would rather not have to go begging for that support, and in fact, most of them would rather not have to even care about it. But it is necessary. To live in this life costs money.

I can honestly say that I do not remember having a missionary ask me anything about how much we could support them or how much we would give them as a gift if they came to speak for us. The ones I know would be embarrassed if they heard of a missionary doing so.

But we all know these things. What has any of this got to do with me being angry?

Because I have spoken to several missionaries of late who have been threatened by churches. Yes, threatened by churches and Pastors.

And it has been associated not with doctrinal matters to do with the missionary themselves, but with matters to do with their sending churches.

And to make it worse, these “Matters” are not doctrinal matters at all.

But the final straw is that in neither case of my personal experience, nor of those that I have been told about, has the matter had anything to do with the missionary themselves. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the “matters” have not been discussed with the sending church in any way, but simply accused and passed around.

Now don’t misunderstand me about this – I am not saying the “matters” are unimportant, or that they should not be discussed. But this is NOT doctrine we are talking about, and it is NOT THE MISSIONARY we are talking about.

Make no mistake, if there is a serious doctrinal issue with a sending church then no good missionary would continue involvement with that church, and would of course find another sending church.

But what we are talking about is not doctrinal – it is stylistic and it is preference. And I will also say that in certain cases it is not a style that I would care to follow. But it is NOT DOCTRINAL matters that are at issue. And we are independent – let these guys answer to God for their choices, and get on with your own choices.

I know now of several missionaries from different sending churches – good, strong, faithful, doctrinal, missionaries, who have been threatened with removed support unless they separate from their sending church.

Whoever you are – and I don’t know because the missionaries are far too gracious to tell tales about you – you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

How dare you attempt to blackmail a servant of the Lord into complying with your preferences?

Do you honestly think these men are your hirelings?

Joh 10:12  But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

Joh 10:13  The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.

That is not an apt description of any missionary I know.

These men (and their wives and families) care about the flock that God has given them the oversight of.

But you think that because someone else has offended your preferences, that you have the right to control these servants of the Lord.

How dare you treat a man who is surrendered to the service of the living God, whose life goal is to see souls saved for the glory of the Lord, as though he were a hireling to be bought and sold, to be commanded and controlled?

You already know that they will not be so, for they have refused to heed your calls of extortion, and have sacrificed the monetary support of such as you, for the integrity of faithfulness and serving the Lord.

If you have a beef with a supporting church, then be man enough to contact the Pastor directly and talk it out with him.

How about this for some direction on the matter?

Gal 6:1  Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

Be spiritual and go to him – if you have a strong BIBLICAL argument then you may have a chance to bring that man back on the right track.

But how dare you try to punish a Pastor who disagrees with your preferences by attacking a missionary who most likely does not even follow the preference of his sending church – if indeed there is anything wrong with that church.

One final reminder – I am not talking about Doctrinal issues, but matters of preference, method, and style.

I am probably amongst the more conservative among us in fact – not right at the outside edge, but I certainly lean heavily that way. I have heard certain things about certain churches, but they are nowhere near me, and they do not directly affect me, and they are NOT DOCTRINAL issues, so I leave them to themselves. If they were to ask me, I would advise them to tread carefully on the path they seem to be going, for I see danger nearby. But they haven’t asked me (probably because I am pretty much a nobody), and in any case they will have to answer to the Lord for their choice, not me.

Heb_13:17  Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

Leave the missionaries alone to serve the Lord. If a missionary falls into Doctrinal error, then revise his support by all means. None of us wants to be paying for a man to lead the lost into a ditch. But if you have an issue with his sending church, then take it up with that church: don’t you dare threaten the missionary.

It is probably a misapplication of the Scripture, but I can’t help thinking of:

2Ki 2:23  And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24  And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

These kids were torn to pieces because they made fun of the man of God: I wonder what sort of punishment awaits the man who blackmails and threatens a man of God?

And you will note that I have not mentioned any names at all. This is partly because the missionaries would not divulge those names (not that I asked), and I do not care to divulge the names of sending churches involved either. I can’t see that naming names like that is any way to restore such an one in a spirit of meekness.

But then again, I am well aware that this has not been very meek either. At least I have not set out to personally embarrass or attack anyone. If you feel attacked or embarrassed, maybe you should ask yourself why? I haven’t mentioned any names at all. 

And to end, I in no way endorse any church that might be straying from the "traditional ways" of Independent Baptist Churches - I am just angry at those who would punish an innocent missionary for the faults (real or perceived) of their sending church.

Meetings with church people.....

I have recently been reminded of some experiences that my wife and I have had over the years when meeting with church people.

It is a funny thing (not funny ha ha, but funny strange!) that people seem to think that they can talk to a pastor however they like, and even more out of place is that they think they can talk to his wife about issues they are having with him.
Can I point out that in a godly church, the wife is not on staff - she is simply a lady who loves the Lord and supports her husband.
A Pastor's wife ends up doing all sorts of things that people expect "from a Pastor's Wife" but it is not actually her job.
I probably need to have a post here on Pastor's wives that discuss these things more fully, but for now, just know that a Pastor's wife does what she does because she loves the Lord and loves her husband, not because she is paid staff. Leave her alone, and if you have an issue with the way her husband is Pastoring, then TALK TO HIM about it.

Anyway, back to the actual issue.
I have had a few times when I have been approached by a member of our church wanting to have a fairly heavy discussion about something with me and my wife(!), and so we have made an appointment and set up the meeting. In two cases it has actually been about my leadership ability and style, and so I have no idea why they wanted my wife there as well - she hates these sorts of things, and will do just about anything to avoid them.
The funniest part of all this to me is that I have to brief and remind my wife to stay calm and to be meek no matter what is said, because she hates - absolutely hates it - when I am criticised. It takes all her strength to sit quietly while the discussion proceeds.

I have found that in these situations there is one verse that is absolutely vital to keep in mind:

Proverbs 15:1
(1)  A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

It is amazing how well a meeting goes if you determine beforehand not to react to accusations and not to make ANY counter-accusations.

It simply takes the wind entirely out of the sails of the "assailant" (because that is what the person feels like when you are sitting there!)

Can I tell you a phrase that needs to be memorised and repeated by anyone who is likely to find themselves in this situation?

Repeat after me: 

Thank-you for your information. I will think on it and see how I can improve in that area.

Saying something like that even in response to outlandish accusations causes the accuser to pause and think about what is going on here.

You see, most of the time they expect that they are going to have a fight on their hands, and they actually WANT you to react quickly and harshly to their accusations - most of the time they even phrase their questions and accusations in the worst way to exaggerate their grievance.
They want a fight, but if you don't give them that, but instead take on board their criticism and let them know you will consider it, they simply don't know where to go and what to do.

We had one particular meeting where my wife and I both had notebooks in front of us at the table.
This meeting was organised at a neutral location and with a moderator there to step in if things got nasty - it really was that intense.
When our accuser came in and sat at the table she asked us "What are the notebooks for? Are you going to write down everything I say to keep it as ammunition?" I answered, "No, we are going to write down the things that you think we need to change or that you think we are not doing well so that we can look at them alter and consider them properly, and so we don't forget something that we need to look at."
She was shocked, and it immediately put her down a notch.
It still wasn't a nice meeting, but it had lost the aggressive edge.
There were times during that meeting when the pressure cooker in my head was close to blowing but we both managed to keep it inside and not let of the steam during the meeting.

The car ride home was another matter - full of steam and also a bit of laughter at some of the ridiculous charges that were brought.
The accuser left our church soon after, but in my experience these people are looking for a reason to leave anyway, and having a big fight with the Pastor and his wife is a great excuse to leave a church - then you can go around and tell everybody that they yelled at you and how uncharitable they were. (Just conveniently forget to mention that you badgered them until they exploded!)
This person however could not do that because it didn't happen - they ended up leaving with the excuse that "I have outgrown this church and need to find somewhere where I can grow."
Oh yeah, and the person who was moderator for this meeting gained a whole new level of respect for us, and the relationship between him and me was vastly improved because of this meeting.

The thing is, to say that you will consider the accusation should not be just words.
I have found that people rarely just make up outright lies about others. People will definitely blow something right out of proportion and the saying  "to make a mountain out of a molehill" survives for exactly that reason, but it is rare that an accusation has absolutely no foundation. Sometimes that foundation is irrelevant, and sometimes it is minuscule, but it is rare that there is nothing at all there.

So genuinely consider every accusation made against you. Most of them will be small things, some of them will be silly things, and sometimes you will find something that really does need attention, and possibly even more than that person even realised.
And of course every now and then there will be not even the smallest grain of truth in it.

For an extreme example, an accusation of immorality might be entirely untrue, but it might reveal to you that you are allowing situations where the accusation can be made, and you then change that habit to a "safer" one where even the possibility of accusation cannot happen.

But always keep in mind with things like this that the problem in most cases is not actually with the Pastor, nor with his wife, but it is with the person making the accusations. Most of the time they want to leave the church for some reason, but they don't want anyone to know that reason, so they have to find some sort of "cover reason" so that no one knows it is their own heart that is the problem.
And someone in leadership - the Pastor, the youth Pastor, the Sunday School leader - it doesn't actually matter who - becomes the target. They start compiling a list of troubles and faults, and then they talk to others about that list, and they get more worked up about it, until they "Just have to do something about it".

Why don't they do the godly thing and go to that person in private without talking to others first. Then if they won't listen to that one on one, find a spiritually mature person and ask them to come along for another talk. Then...... well the Bible tells us the rest of that situation, but in my experience these people would never get past the second part without the "spiritually mature" witness dealing with it in a godly fashion.

Now don't get me wrong here - it is not always the accuser who is wrong - Pastors make mistakes and sin as well, but that is why we always need to listen to criticism, even that which we feel is unjustified. It may just reveal something that we do need to address.

But I think we all know the kind of accuser I am talking about.

Missionaries II

Well, I have now asked and heard back from many of our missionaries, and also had the opportunity to talk a few people who have been associated with missions work in the past.

And I have to report that every one of the missionaries that our church financially supports, and the others that I have spoken to, are singing the same tune: They hear very little from a very few people on a regular basis.

In fact most of them said that they have not one person who keeps in regular touch with them, and the only one who said otherwise, has one single pastor who has been keeping in touch on a fairly regular basis, but that has only been the last year or so - this missionary has been on that field for around 25 years.
And the biggest tragedy of that is that this includes even the sending church and the Pastor who is their authority.
One mentioned that he knew of another missionary who basically never heard from his sending church Pastor, and that Sending Pastor simply had no idea what the missionary was doing in the field, and how the support was being used nor even whether or not the missionary was actually serving the Lord.

I have not had the privilege of sending a missionary to the field - I hope to one day - but I would like to think that I would care for at least "our own" missionary enough to keep in touch and keep him encouraged. But that is probably a bit like the person who said that they knew all about being a parent until they had kids......

What this shows me is that there is even more need and even more importance to keeping in touch with our missionaries regularly. We simply don't know how many and how often people are keeping in touch with them, and one thing we should all realise is that out there on the forefront of the battle, away from family and friends, these soldiers need to know that they have people "back at home" who really do care for them - and care enough to give them a call on occasion, to send them emails, even to send letters the old fashioned way.

As I read response after response, my heart was breaking with pain for these hardworking servants who never murmur about all of this, and my heart was filling with shame at my own lack of care and my own selfishness.

But I need to acknowledge one thing - I am likely to slip in this at times. I actually wrote back and told the missionaries to give me a kick if I start to get slack. Or maybe that should be when I start to get slack - I know me. Please pray for me on this.

But also I need to ask anyone reading this to get in touch with your own missionaries.
I cannot believe that the missionaries that we support are the ONLY ones who are experiencing this. Sorry folks, just not possible.

So get in touch with your missionaries, and let them know what is going on in your church and your life, and ask them how you can pray for them, and say hi, and chat a while...........

And I think that we need to start calling them "My Missionary".
We know they are God's missionaries, but when I think of my kids I think differently to the way I think of other kids.
Maybe if we start to call them "My Missionary" we might start to think of them as "My missionary", and then we might just care for them more.

Am I rambling about this? I feel like I am, but this is my thoughts blog and if it wasn't already obvious, these last two posts and what they relate to in my life just prove that I have named it right - these are the thoughts of a dumb bloke.......

Missionaries.

Our church supports a number of missionaries financially - not for huge amounts but what we can afford, and I hope it makes a difference to them.

But I have in the past sort of made some assumptions about missionaries.
Things such as "Missionaries are always popular when they visit churches, so they must have plenty of friends." Another goes something like - "I went to a local small Bible college (between 3 and 8 students while I was there) in a fairly remote city, so that is why I don't know or talk to many other pastors, Most missionaries went to bigger Bible colleges in bigger places, so they obviously have far more ministry friends than I have."

Another assumption I have made is that missionaries are always so busy that if I email them too often they will get annoyed at the interruptions and having to answer my petty little conversations.

Over the past few months I have found that maybe my assumptions are a little inaccurate.

If there is a missionary out there that is reading this then you are probably simultaneously laughing, crying, and choking on your breakfast cereal at the thought of this being "a little inaccurate".
Actually I am coming to the realisation that it is entirely inaccurate.

Missionaries appreciate and very much need the financial support. I am coming to understand that missionaries in general don't have enough financial support to get by, but somehow the Lord keeps them fed. I had built up this idea that the average missionary has loads of churches which support them for little bits and a few that support them with big bits, but I think the truth is that most missionaries have a few churches that support them for little bits and even fewer that support them for medium bits, and then they just manage somehow.......

But this is not actually about the financial support.
Missionaries DO need and appreciate the financial support, but they also need to have friends that they can talk to and who talk to them.
And missionary wives need to have friends that they can talk to and who will talk to them.

And these friends need to be someone outside their place of ministry.
Something that only a Pastor or pastor's wife can understand is that everyone in your church - even those you count as friends - are ministry. There is no such thing as a "pure friendship" within your church for the Pastor and his wife.
The same goes for the missionary - they no doubt have friends in their field, but not the same way that other people have friends - everyone in your mission field is part of your ministry, and you are by the very definition, ministering to them, even if they are your friends.
But it is exacerbated even further by the distance and isolation of the missionary. I can if I really need to, go and talk to a Pastor/friend nearby. But where does a missionary go if there are no other missionaries in his field?
And this goes for the missionary's wife as well, but in some ways even moreso, for women in general are more reliant on that sort of talk and interaction.

And although none have mentioned it to me, in thinking about it, I would want my kids to know also the culture that I came from, and for them to have friends from among that group.

What I am saying is that Pastors in particular need to do more than send cheques to missionaries.
We need to be friends to them. We need to send emails just to say "Hi, how are you going?" or to let them know what is happening in your own life - I am sure they want to hear from time to time what life "back home" is like now.
And Pastor's wives need to make friends of missionary wives, and just chat from time to time.
And Pastors need to encourage their kids to get in touch with the missionary kids and just make friends of them.

We need to not be so worried about "interrupting" or "bothering" the missionary and his family, and I think we need to DETERMINE to bother and interrupt the missionary and their families.

Let THEM tell us when we are overdoing it, rather than being too timid about it.
They will find a few "friends" in all this that they will make closer friends with, and those that they don't will still be appreciated I am sure.

Am I totally off track with this?
I don't know - I haven't actually asked any of our missionaries about this.
This is just what I think, and it has come from observing some of the goings on with missionaries of late.

I am pretty sure about one thing though - they want people to do more than just send them a cheque very month.
They want people to remember them.
And they NEED people to be praying for them.

I am going to try harder.........