Focus 40 is coming soon!

I am writing this on February 10, but many of you will be reading this in early March when our monthly newsletters are printed and distributed.  By that time, the title above should read “Focus 40 has come!”

This is the second year in which the Church of God movement has put together this event, “Focus 40,” which is to be an intentional time of prayer and fasting during the 40 days leading up to Easter.  Last year’s emphasis was on prayer and fasting for spiritual renewal and revitalization; this year’s emphasis is on prayer and fasting for specific people to come to know the Lord.

Prayer and fasting often appear together in our scriptures.  Perhaps most notably, Jesus spent 40 days fasting (and presumably praying) in the wilderness just before beginning his ministry on earth (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13).  In the Old Testament, Moses fasted for 40 days on two different occasions while he received the tablets of the law of God (Deuteronomy 9:7-21).  In the New Testament, the apostles appointed leaders for young churches after praying and fasting to determine God’s will (Acts 14:23).

This year, we are gathering together as Church of God people in a concerted effort to pray and fast regarding those friends, family members, and acquaintances we have who are not in a saving relationship with Jesus.  This is surely very important work!  We cannot keep the good news of the kingdom of God to ourselves; we are called to make disciples and to instruct others to keep Christ’s commands.

I encourage you, friends, in the time leading up to Easter (and beyond!):  invest yourself in prayer for people who do not know the Lord.  If you are able, skip a meal once in a while and use that time and energy to come before God in prayer.  If you feel led to do so, fast for longer periods of time.  (Remember that you should discuss any extended fast – even for a few days – with your doctor ahead of time.)

Let us pray that we will see a new generation of believers come to know the Lord in our midst!

–Pastor David

Strategic Planning Conference

As many of you know, I traveled to Nashville, TN last week for the Church of God’s “Strategic Planning Conference” (SPC), which is held every five years to help our movement relocate its identity, its vision, and its direction for the coming years.  I was honored to be invited to attend this series of meetings, and I’d like to report to you some of what took place in those days.

The conference was attended by pastors, administrators, missionaries, and educators (among others) from all around North America – and we even had a few from other continents as well.  About 140 people were in attendance, and as preparation for this event we were all asked to read Signals at the Crossroads, a new book by the late Dr. Gil Stafford which combines his two previous Crossroads books with new material he was writing in his final days.  This book raises many issues that the Church of God movement is facing, and it’s worth your time.  If you’d like to read it, you are welcome to borrow my copy!

We had several excellent speakers at the SPC who highlighted several concerns for our movement:  how we cast a vision for the movement as a whole, how we resolve conflicts inside and among churches, how we keep pastors from being isolated from each other, how we encourage women in ministry, how we balance religious enthusiasm with theological reflection, how we sustain our rich heritage while we engage our present culture.  We spent time in prayer and in worship as we brainstormed around these ideas.

For several years, the Church of God movement has lacked a strong, central, driving vision:  our reason for existence is not as strong as it has been in the past.  Granted, throughout our history, we have experimented with a number of different ideas for our purpose, mission, and vision.  Over the course of time, though, these ideas have faded, and where we are – in terms of a guiding purpose for the movement as a whole – is a little uncertain.

So, much of our time together, as a combined group and in our smaller break-out groups, was dedicated to recapturing a vision for the movement as a whole.  Through most of the conference – at least the two-thirds of the conference which I was able to attend – we saw evangelism move into the forefront of our collective vision for the Church of God.

On the positive side, it is surely part of our mission as people of God to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to individuals that are outside the kingdom of God.  After all, this was summarized by the Great Commission which Jesus gave his disciples at the end of Matthew.  We do well to emphasize this component of our Christian faith and mission.  However, I fear that we may become single-minded (for instance, ignoring the lifelong task of discipleship) if we focus too much on evangelism.  Also, we must remain faithful to our theological heritage while we press forward with evangelism.

One of my major concerns is with a recent trend in the Church of God to set numeric goals for our corporate success.  You may remember our Focus40 event this past spring; another is being planned for next year, and this time there is a stated goal of 25,000 new believers worldwide through the implementation of Focus40, and this was repeated at the SPC this past week.  Also, at the conference, one of the small break-out groups suggested that the Church of God set a goal of having 10,000 congregations on its roster by the year 2020.  This latter goal is simply mathematically impossible:  we would have to plant two or three churches every day for the next nine years to meet that goal.

The Church of God movement – and Mt. Haley Church of God in particular – must resist the urge to set numeric goals for their success.  If we as a congregation see fifty souls saved by Christ in the next year, we will have great reason to celebrate!  But if we set that goal ahead of time, then we are (at best) risking manipulation of God or (at worst) setting ourselves up to fail.  As one of our SPC speakers said, we need to balance religious enthusiasm with theological reflection.

Who are we?  What are we all about?  These are questions that we as a congregation are beginning to tackle once again; I hope it is beneficial for you to know that the Church of God movement is in a similar position.  May we all rely only on the Lord for the casting of our vision as we strive to carry out his will, until Christ returns and takes us home.

–Pastor David

North American Convention

This week, I had the privilege of attending the 125th North American Convention of the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana. You might usually refer to this event as “campmeeting,” although it seems most attendees these days stay in hotel rooms rather than in campers (and certainly not in tents). As usual, this was a good time for folks in the Church of God to reconnect with each other, to share ideas for ministry, and to worship God together. I’d like to share a few things with you that stood out to me from this year’s convention:

The identity of the Church of God. For many years, the Church of God as a movement/denomination has been struggling with the question of its identity. Who are we? What do we stand for? What can we contribute to the world of Christian faith? Now it finally seems that some important voices are beginning to clarify these questions.

  • First, our General Director, Dr. Ron Duncan, gave an excellent annual report to the General Assembly (pastors and lay leaders from our congregations). In this report, Dr. Duncan clarified what we believe and what makes us distinct from other Christian groups, and he explained what we have accomplished and where we are going as a movement. If you’d like to see this report, please let me know – I have a copy in my study.
  • Second, a new book entitled “Signals at the Crossroads” has been published. This book combines Dr. Gil Stafford’s two previous “Crossroads” books and includes new material that he was writing at the time of his death in 2008. I’ll be reading this book this summer, and I’d be glad to let you take a glance at it if you like.
  • Third, I’ve been invited to participate in the Strategic Planning Conference of the Church of God, which will be held in Nashville, TN in September this year. While the agenda of this conference has yet to be released, the meetings promise to give our leaders even more clarity and direction to the Church of God for the coming years. More details will come later!

Changes to the North American Convention. Attendance at campmeeting has been declining for many years, and as a result of this and several other factors, the General Assembly has appointed a task force to study several options for consideration. The main ideas are that the convention (a) may be held less frequently, perhaps every other year, and (b) may be held in locations other than Anderson. No decisions have been made yet; the General Assembly will hear suggestions at the 2012 campmeeting and may make a decision at that point. In any case, the 2013 campmeeting has already been repurposed and renamed as a “Global Gathering” of the Church of God; church leaders from around the world will come to Anderson for a week of worship and fellowship. The earliest we would see a significant change to the North American Convention would be in 2014.

Interest in in-depth Bible study. This year, I helped to lead a pair of conferences entitled “Difficult Texts of the Bible.” Last year, we held one similarly titled conference, and fifty people attended; this year, thirty-five people came to each conference. These were very strongly attended, and we had excellent conversations! The conferences focused on wrestling with difficult passages of scripture – passages that are hard to understand, challenging to accept, or apparently contradictory with other parts of the Bible. This year, we studied Ecclesiastes 7:15-18, which calls us to be righteous, but not too righteous; in the second conference, we studied Mark 10:1-12, which is often interpreted to say “divorce is sinful” but really says much more than this. The strong response to these conferences is important to me because it shows that people in the Church of God are hungry for in-depth Bible study. Are you? If you’d like to know more about these conferences, please ask me!

If you are curious about anything else that took place during the North American Convention this year, please let me know. I’d be glad to talk about it with you!

–Pastor David

Focus on What?

Have you ever had trouble focusing on the task at hand? Some people struggle with the ability to focus more than other people, but I believe nearly everyone knows what it’s like to have a wandering mind. I know that’s true for me – sometimes, I have the hardest time getting started on my day!

We are in the middle of our “Focus 40” experience, the Church of God initiative that is uniting hundreds of congregations in a quest for deepening our relationships with God and for hearing his voice in our lives anew. The “40” part is easy to understand: these are the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday, which will be here before you know it. I think it’s more difficult for us to understand – and to practice – the concept of “focusing.”

What does it mean to focus? When you are at work, you have to focus on your job; you have to put aside all other distractions and complete the tasks you have been given. When a friend is sharing a personal struggle, a great joy, or a prayer request, you ought to place all your attention on your friend. When your family is going through a difficult time, there comes a point at which you need to focus on solving the problem in a healthy, God-honoring manner. Why are these things so hard to do sometimes?

When it comes to leisure activities, we have no trouble focusing. We watch intently the last few minutes of the TV show or movie. We’re on the edge of our seats for the last few minutes of the basketball game, the last inning of the baseball game, or the last several laps of the big race. Whatever our “fun” activities are, we often pour our entire attention into them. So why is it harder to focus completely on more important things – our jobs, our families, even our own relationships with God?

This is one reason why we are engaging as a church in this “Focus 40” season. Two spiritual disciplines, prayer and fasting, are being emphasized as practices to help us learn how to focus on the Lord. None of us are “naturals” at focusing on things of importance all the time; we each have to learn how to give our attention to the Lord on a regular basis. Several of you have committed to praying regularly or to fasting once (or more) per week during “Focus 40”; please know that I am praying regularly for you as you practice these disciplines.

Focusing on spiritual things is important to the Lord, so it should be important to us as well. Take to heart how this New Testament passage encourages us to take spiritual growth seriously:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:23-25 NIV)

–Pastor David

Faith in the Information Age

If you’ve paid attention to our culture in the past several years, you’ve probably noticed a few new terms springing up in our vocabulary: “information age,” “social media,” “blogging,” “tweeting,” “texting,” and so forth. The way we communicate with each other has changed drastically in recent years. In fact, I am typing these very words into a new blog post for our church website. After I’m finished here, I will copy and paste this article into a new note on our Facebook page, and only then, at the end of the month, will I assemble this and other articles into a paper newsletter for people in our church without Internet access.

Like it or not, the way our society communicates has changed – and continues to change – into something never before seen in human history. Rather than bemoan the loss of the way things used to be, though, I believe our response as Christians should be to find new and creative ways to spread the message of Jesus Christ within the context of the culture in which we live.

This task has become very difficult, however, on account of the system through which many people communicate today. Allow me to illustrate with one current example. In the past six weeks, two articles have appeared on the “Belief Blog” of CNN’s website. The first was entitled “The Bible’s surprisingly mixed messages on sexuality,” and the second was a response entitled “The Bible really does condemn homosexuality.” Both articles are well-written and articulate, even though the first article is not as biblically sound as the second.

You might imagine that these articles got quite a response from the public. In fact, each article has received around 4,000 comments from everyday people – and that includes the second article, which is only six days old right now. As I scan through the thousands of comments on these articles, I am struck by one important observation: no significant dialogue takes place in this online format. Everyone posts what they believe or what they feel, and they are quick to attack and find flaws in the opposing position.

This has even affected conversations within the Church of God, albeit on a smaller scale. The Church of God has its own social media site called MyCHOG, where people share ideas and discuss important issues. Even in our own sub-culture, discussions about hot-button ethical topics often devolve into name-calling and finger-pointing.

It is as if twenty-first century Americans no longer want to learn or to discuss. Instead, we want to argue and to prove the other guy wrong. Again, we should not bemoan this change and yearn for days gone by, because (a) we must work for Christ in our current context, not in the past, and (b) these “information age” changes are only highlighting human characteristics that have been with us all along.

How do we communicate the message of the kingdom of God to our lost and dying world? I propose that the solution is not found in arguments, debates, or blog comments. Instead, one potential solution lies in our ability to become good storytellers. But I’ll save the rest of that thought for next week.

–Pastor David

Focus 40

The season of Lent, which leads up to Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, is nearly upon us.  Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which this year falls on March 9.  Traditionally, this is a season of preparation, introspection, and repentance for Christians around the world.  This year, the Church of God is observing Lent in a unique way:  it’s called “Focus 40.”

For the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday, the entire Church of God movement is being encouraged to spend time in prayer and fasting for the sake of seeking the Lord’s direction for our movement and for our congregations.  This is an exciting opportunity for us to participate in a unifying event with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  To date, over 400 congregations in the United States and around the world have signed up to participate – including us!

Now, I’m not calling for any of us to spend the entirety of these forty days in prayer and fasting.  In fact, it’s not a good idea to go on a forty-day fast without your doctor’s permission, because that’s a long time to go without food.  But perhaps you would consider fasting for a day or for a meal, once or twice or three times during the 40-day period.  And certainly I hope you will consider praying consistently for Mt. Haley Church of God, for our sister churches in the area, and for the Church of God as a whole.

Prayer is a no-brainer for most of us.  But why fast?  Historically, prayer and fasting have been the means by which God’s people have expressed their deep desire to be in relationship with him.  Fasting occurred in the Old Testament during times of distress, confession, repentance, and seeking God’s will (Ezra 8:23; Nehemiah 1:4; Psalm 35:13; Daniel 9:3).  In the New Testament, prayer and fasting went together as a means of determining the will of the Lord in selecting missionaries and church leaders (Acts 13:1-3 and Acts 14:23).

When we abstain from eating food for a certain length of time, we are reminding ourselves of our weakness and our dependence on God.  Hunger pains remind us that we depend on God for life itself and for our daily bread; with that in mind, we can also remember that we depend on God for guidance, health, safety, leadership, and answers to prayer.  Fasting is a method of practicing deep spirituality that has stood the tests of time.

We also have the opportunity to practice our unity with fellow believers through a shared program of daily devotionals.  Each day during this 40-day season, we will share in a devotional thought written by someone in our movement to help us unite our thoughts and prayers around a specific request or idea.  These devotionals will be available on our church website and on Facebook in early March, and paper copies will be made available soon as well.

I invite you to join me and thousands of other Christian brothers and sisters as we ask the Lord to move mightily through our congregation, community, nation, and movement in the upcoming season of Lent.

–Pastor David

Breathless Worship

This Monday, I had the privilege of attending the funeral service of Rev. Sam Dunbar, pastor of two nearby churches and friend to many at Mt. Haley. I never knew Sam personally, but my parents did, and I know his daughter Jenny from my seminary days. Something that happened at the end of the service was very striking, very powerful, and I’d like to share it with you.

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