The Parable of the Two Motors

This a helpful parable from Robert Fitts about the role of leaders in the local church.

In every car there are two motors – one runs on gasoline and the other on electricity. The gasoline motor is huge in comparison to the electric motor; but it is the tiny little electric motor that is designed to start the gasoline motor, and the gasoline motor is designed to provide the power to move the car. As soon as the big motor engages, the little motor disengages. If it did not, it would burn out in a matter of minutes.

The apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher are servants to the Body of Christ to act as initiators (starters) to get the body functioning. Just as the starter motor disengages as soon as the big motor starts, so it is with the wise leader. If he stays engaged he will burn out, just as a starter motor would do if it did not disengage after starting the big motor.

As long as the little starter motor is trying to move the car by the power of a single battery, the car will never function as it was designed to function. It is only the 350 horsepower motor that was designed to move the car, and it is only the Body of Christ that has been designed to build up the Body unto the measure of the fulness of Christ. Only as the Body of Christ is released to minister to itself will it ever attain unto the fullness of the maturity in Christ.

Robert Fitts – The Church in the House (a Return to Simplicity) www.robertfitts.com

The Sunday Morning Obsession

This is an excerpt from Lance Ford. Sadly Sunday Morning ‘church’ seems to be the highlight of many a Christian’s spiritual experience. I can’t imagine that Jesus intended this to be so. That the best expression of our faith should happen inside a religious building?  I’m not sure that the average Australian is remotely interested in Sunday Morning Church no matter how we jazz it up. But many Christians love a slick, well oiled Sunday event – and would be offended by me describing it as such.

A couple of nights ago I was channel flipping and caught a talk being given at a church planter’s conference. First of all, I was surprised to see a church planting conference being shown on TV. I was soon cringing though as the (well known) speaker said, “The first priority you have is to present a great Sunday morning service.” The camera quickly scanned the audience, as a sea of goateed future planters scribbled down this “critical” learning point.

I literally yelled at the television, “No!” This is one of the biggest problems we have with attractional churches today. Pastors and church staffs are obsessed with Sunday mornings. The vast majority of time, resources, and energy go into creating and sustaining Sunday mornings. Jesus’ commission to make disciples gets the leftovers.

Lance Ford   shapevine@christianitytoday.com

John Fischer: Being Around Not-Yet Christians

This is an excellent article by John Fischer which should help us relax and be more confident in our quest to share Jesus.

Coming Alongside

I am normally not a fan of ten steps to this or five ways to do that. But for one of my recent talks I came up with these six things to remember about being around those who may not yet be Christians, and thought some of you might find it useful.

1) Assume everyone is searching for God. Why? Because everyone is. We were created this way. God has purposely frustrated humanity by creating us with eternity in our hearts, yet with an inability to fathom what that is or what it means (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11). He has done this so that we might reach out for him and find him though He is not far from any of us for in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28).

2) Come alongside. This is really the crux of it all. Just walk alongside people and enter into their lives. Listen. Talk. Laugh. Cry. Find out where you can contribute and what you can learn. There’s something to give and something to receive in every relationship.

3) Point. You don’t tell someone what the truth is; you point to it. “There it is over there,” or “Here it is in my life.” This is why we need to learn to identify truth in the context of the world around us. Truth isn’t religious. You don’t have to get into a certain posture to see it. It’s not something that hasn’t been there all along.

4) Find out what people already know before you set out to tell them anything. Don’t ever think you have to clear the table and start over. This is why it’s so important to listen first. Find out what’s already on the table that you can use.

5) You don’t have to tell everything you know. Just the next thing.

6) You don’t have to correct everything someone says that is wrong. You are not the protector and defender of truth. You don’t have to decide where to draw the line. You don’t even have to be concerned if someone may be walking away with the wrong idea. You are not that smart anyway because you don’t know what’s in someone’s head. As long as they have something to think about, that’s a good thing.

And now here’s the one final thing that makes all this possible. It is the most important of all. (This is the one thing that makes all six of these make sense.) We don’t save anybody, convince anybody, “win” anybody to Christ or close the deal. All that is God’s business. The Holy Spirit is doing this all on His own terms and timetable. We are not salesmen, marketing reps, counselors or prosecutors. We are just friends who come alongside.

John’s Fischtank is found here.

THE BARKADAS OF JESUS

MOLONG NACUA

The third apostle we met on our trip to the Philippines was Molong Nacua (pronounced naquah). I met Molong on the internet whilst surfing for house churches in the Philippines. His writings connected with my spirit and we finished up spending 5 wonderful days with him and his wife Lisa and their extended family on the Central Philippines island of Cebu.

The story of Molong (or as he says, ‘Long’ for short) is one of a gradual journey through traditional style church (youth pastor, worship leader) to traditional style homechurch (doing the same but in a house) to a less structured homechurch (but still based on attending a weekly meeting), to his current passion, simply building a company of disciples for Jesus.  While we were with him he coined the phrase ‘The Barkadas of Jesus’ to describe them – a barkada being a wonderful Filipino word referring to a company of friends joined in a common bond of friendship and loyalty. No set meeting times or programs but what he refers to as a life of ‘intention – relational discipleship’, mainly based on reading the Bible, learning to listen to the Spirit and learning how to disciple a friend for Jesus. We did a lot of listening and talking while we were with him but the highlight of our visit was an unintentional demonstration of the ‘barkada’.

It happened when a young recently graduated high school student, Jommie, turned up with his friend Julian, who he had recently invited to become a disciple of Jesus. Jommie had been discipled two months earlier, beginning with the same invitation, by Albert, who had been discipled by Molong. Albert had baptised Jommie the Saturday before we arrived  and now Jommie was ready to baptise Julian.

So we headed down to the sea to baptise him. Two days later however, the three boys turn up at Molong’s house with a new friend, Louey Dan, a not-yet-believer who they were working on. Over lunch the Gospel was explained to Louey Dan and an invitation given to become a disciple of Jesus. He was ready, having observed his young friends for some time. An hour later Julian, baptised only two days earlier, was praying over his friend as he baptised him into Christ.

Later, as we celebrated over Dunkin Donuts, I took the opportunity to quiz the members of this growing Barkada of Jesus about what they had done and how deep was their grasp of the Gospel. Each man impressed me with his grasp of repentance and faith, one of the most articulate being Louey Dan.  We finished our donuts and the boys hung around for a meal with Molong and Lisa and then headed home.

And three days later we headed back home ourselves, back to our own nation of Australia with a whole new understanding of what Jesus meant when He simply said (my paraphrase),

“Go and preach the Gospel, making disciples, baptising them and teaching them to obey me. And lo I am with you to the end … every day, not mainly on Sundays, not mainly in your meetings, not mainly via the Pastor, but moment by moment, day by day, until I come again.”

You can catch up with Molong’s writings at the new blogsite we are building together, The Barkadas of Jesus.  It’s still in in the building stage but you might like to bookmark it.  But be warned. It could change your thinking about the nature of church.

Here’s a Youtube of the new barkada.

THREE APOSTLES TO THE PHILIPPINES

I’ve just returned from one of the most significant trips that I have had to the Philippines. We (myself, my wife Esther and my good friend Carl Porter) went there to serve some churches with whom we had a relationship – and in the process finished up serving three apostles, three good Filipino men that Christ has given as gifts to the church.

FELIX DE RAMOS

One of them was Felix de Ramos. Felix has been serving as a father in the Philippines for the past 15 years and more, travelling around the country building up pastors and serving the Filipino church. He is one of the humblest, most unassuming men I know. His home church, Peace International Christian Church, sounds grand but meets in the basement of a house in Quezon City, Manila, hidden from view yet immensley influential.

Which is what true apostles are all about. Like the bones of the body or the foundations of the building they carry weight and give strength and shape but are hidden. It’s the flesh that carries the life and is seen. Felix, to my mind, embodies that principle and is a gift to the church.

LHOY EDANIOL

Lhoy I’ve introduced in the previous post. He met me with tears at Felix’s church and we proceeded to Sapang Palay to meet the two churches that he was fathering in San Jose del Monte, a significant city in the hills above Manila. Five years ago God restored a very broken Lhoy back into ministry and gathered again the scattered flock that he had left – and added another battered flock to him as well. By the time we arrived Lhoy, with the enthusiastic help of his wife Venus,  had formed them into a couple of vibrant churches with equally enthusiastic workers reaching out among the poor and planting home based churches among them.

Part of the reason I went was to check that he had put into place some protections for himself and his family. Church planting is hard work in the Philippines, especially under old paradigms of ministry. I left him, confident that the safeguards are in place (before I came he had submitted himself to an older pastor in the area who loved him)  and confident also that God had restored him from the wilderness to be a key man in the city. For he carries an apostolic heart for the city, for the churches of the city and for the many other pastors who have fallen under the weight of ministry. God is making him a father beyond his local congregations. And I’m looking forward to being part of that process, raising some support back here in Yeppoon and dropping in now and then to strengthen him in a great work.

MOLONG NACUA

Then there was Molong.  But he definately requires a separate post … stay tuned.

BACK TO THE PHILIPPINES

On Thursday Esther, Carl and I head off to the Philippines to catch up with I guy that I met on my first trip to Manila in 1992. I met Lhoy at a pastors retreat in Sapang Palay, a Smoky Mountain rubbish tip resettlement area in the hills outside Quezon City, Manila. He was pioneering a church that was meeting under a canopy of sewed together rice sacks and the rains had destroyed the canopy.

He was a talented IT technician who had given up his career and was trying to support his young family by selling sticks of garlic house to house while building a church. Over the next few years we built a relationship with him, bought him a motorbike and visited and stood by him as he built up Reaper of Christ Church, a church typical of many thousands of church groups throughout the Philippines.

However the financial struggle and the pastoral care struggles took their toll on him, on his marriage and the church and in 2000 Lhoy left to work in Saudi Arabia leaving behind a destroyed marriage and a disintegrated church. And I lost contact with him.