Graham's space

I’ve been thinking again about the spectacular failure of so much preaching in our churches these days.  Week by week, even night by night for the past two weeks in my own church, the gospel has been proclaimed and yet nothing happens, everyone goes out just the same as they came in!  Members murmur platitudes about the ability of the speaker, whether he was good, bad or indifferent; but just whose fault is it, that nothing happens?

I have a friend who loves preaching the gospel and he worked hard for nearly 40 years in his church but nothing ever changed.  He spoke on Sunday nights, he was Sunday School leader, as well as the mid week Children’s Meeting, out in the community, top marks for commitment, but 0% for results.  Then he went out to Eastern Europe on a tour of churches and was very busy, about 50 meetings in 3 weeks.  The contrast to what he was accustomed to, was just about as great as it could be; he preached in colleges, in schools, in factories, all sorts of places, as well as good few churches and the meetings were crowded, but most of all, he knew of at least 45 converts, one was the young lady who was interpreting for him!

What was the difference?  Quite a few!  Firstly the Christians in the congregation were different; they were really keen, they were fired up and tried everything to get friends and family along to the meetings and they were successful at it too.  My friend immediately knew there was a difference and it made a difference to him as he preached; like an actor responding to an appreciative audience; but there’s more to than that, for we are talking about spiritual issues here.  There was another difference in that the churches themselves were different to those back in Wales, they were growing rapidly!  One other main distinction was that those churches had leaders who the congregations looked up to and appreciated, even admired.  I’ve no need to draw the contrast there!

So the problem in Wales is not with the preaching, nor the people who were coming into the churches, if there were any; the problem was the churches themselves and their lack of leaders!

How is that a lack of leadership makes churches so unsuccessful?  In a church, just as in a business, or a football team, a good leader is absolutely essential and that is born out in the New Testament where we see the very successful missionary, Paul, ensuring that leaders are established in all the new churches he planted.  Yes, a church without leaders [its always in the plural in the New Testament] is like a ship without a rudder, a work horse without a bridle, they just don’t work properly.  Many churches have been going around in circles for a long time and hence we see so many church buildings now empty or being used as anything but a church: [a ‘church’ is a gathering of God’s people, not a building].  Leaders are there to look after the church, make sure that everyone functions with the special gifts that the Holy Spirit has given them.  So a leader’s job is to get the church working; how different to most churches where we see only the leaders hogging the limelight and trying to do everything, but achieving nothing because they are not looking after what and who they should!  Most churches are simply religious clubs following a set of rules and regulations, best called traditions, all upheld rigidly by policemen.

So it’s not the preaching that’s a problem, so much as the church itself and its inability to produce leaders.  Why is this, because the New Testament shows that everything that is necessary for a church to function is within the company?  All the gifts are there, the Holy Spirit puts them there, the problem is that they are not being exercised.  In the off chance one gift, preaching, is being used, it’s not often being used properly!  Some preach out of contention, some for popularity, some for money, just as in Paul’s day, but all that will be addressed when real leaders appear; that’s another one of their jobs, to make sure whoever is in the pulpit, are preaching as they should.  God will hold them responsible for what they allow to go on in the church!

The problems in the west are very great for the few churches that are left, but the ‘nonleaders’ in the church do not realise the severity of it.  Most churches mean nothing at all to 98% of the community around where they gather, most of the time they are drive in churches and the % rises to 99.9%!  [Drive in churches do work if the congregation work in their home area and bring friends and neighbours with them; but that seldom happens either].  Most churches are completely irrelevant to the community, they have strict rules and regulations, they talk another language, they wear different clothes, they are exclusive, isolated and remote; in fact, if we were tick off all the factors that really make up a cult, then sadly, many churches would almost fit the bill.

How will a church overcome all the deeply rooted problems that they face?  First they will have to deal with the all problems within, get real leaders who can get the whole church fit and working together, the ‘agape’ syndrome, [instead of quarrelling], then they can start to address the problems in the community.  If a church can really get together and demonstrate the love of Christ as He requires, John 13;35, then, it will be surprising how quickly the community will find out and they will come in without much persuading, they will want to know the reason of our hope, 1Pet 3;15.   The hardest and longest job for the church will be in the recognition of elders, leaders, overseers, who they can rely on and trust.  Such men are not voted for, they arise in the church because of the work they do in the church and the character they demonstrate every day, in the church and in the community.  If a church has any real desire to serve God, then these men will be recognised as overseers because the Holy Spirit has chosen them, has led them, and they have obeyed His leading and got addressing the many needs that they see.  All this is very hard, it will take some real honesty and integrity, much heart searching and confession of sin; but not much preaching!  As long as we flounder on without real church leaders, any outreach to the community is going to long and hard, with very little success; but we have an option, and it is possible to get it right, because the fields are very white and very ready for harvest.

It has been one of those trips again!  18 country border crossings; [thankfully, only 2 ask for passports these days, UK and the Romanian/Hungarian]. 10 currency changes!  10 changes of beds!  Dozens of lectures, studies and seminars.  Lots of games with children in very hot sunshine!  Many craft sessions for children.  English teaching sessions.  Volley ball games, sightseeing trips, shopping trips, BBQs and 5200 miles.  Of course, it was all very enjoyable, [maybe not the shopping trips!], but, with the heat, sometimes 38 degrees, it was very demanding and we often flopped onto our beds, drained physically and mentally.

We do rejoice that the Word of God has been effective in the hearts and lives of many who were at the camps, including some who have never heard the gospel before and others who seem close to the kingdom.  It was great to see expressions of the fruit of the Word in the lives of some of our friends from many camps over the years.  One in particular stands out -  a Ukrainian couple came with a very substantial gift for friends in the Lord’s work in Nigeria, their second gift; but when we first met the young man many years ago, he came to camp with all his belongings in a plastic carrier bag!

Other fruit was seen in friends who have a great desire for the Word, both in ministry and the gospel and it seems that the coming year will be even busier than this year, it seems there might be at least one evangelistic camp next year, so please advertise this to your young people as we need assistance with this kind of camp. Not just young people either, if any of you would like to participate in any of these camps please let us know.

The first 2 camps in Homorod, Romania, with the Makfalva Assembly were very good, 50 children, and we were busy with craft and games and stories.  The weather was very hot, getting so hot it brewed thunderstorms, which cooled it slightly, until it built up for another one; about once a week!  We pray that the Lord will bless the seed sown, it is very much ‘early sowing’, especially with the children, most of them from non Christian homes.  Please water it with your prayers.

The Frystak Family Camp was also a good time, busy with the children in the mornings and seminars with the parents in the evenings.  It was good that some children came in from the village of Frystak and they were able to hear Bible stories, do craft work, and get to know us; one of them had good English and so we had an additional translator; always useful!  The village children asked if we will come again next year and when we said – probably; they said - oh good, we will come again and bring our friends; most did not miss one day.

We were in Sazava for 6 days, with Olga and Mirek Karbulova, and enjoyed the good weather and the lovely scenery in this part of Czech; it is a resort area on a river and many people come from Prague to holiday and if they have money, like many do now, have a second home here.  It was great to have a break to recuperate before the last 3 camps. 

The next camp was at the Domos Bible Centre in Hungary for  the annual English/ Hungarian camp.  We met up again with some friends who we made last year who are not believers, but come to the centre for special occasions.  Please pray that the Lord will open their hearts, we believe that two ladies are close to making a decision for Christ.  The Bible studies and seminars with believers were again most beneficial, also the craft, stories and games with the children.  Some of the friends from the local assembly attended regularly and their children enjoyed the time too.

Then it was back to Romania, this time at Tarkany for the Oradea Assembly youth camp, about 25 of them with various visitors on different days.  We got down to some serious study and we feel that the challenge was fresh to some, while others are already serving the Lord in various ways.  It was great to live in the lovely house at Tarkany, built entirely by our friend George whose building business has been blessed by the Lord; a great facility complete with sports areas.  Please pray for him and the business in these difficult financial days.  So far he has only laid off 4 men, he employs about 95 currently, half of them believers!

Then, finally, back again to Domos for the Philadelphia Trust Retreat, where we met up with some of the many friends from the International Camp to discuss the way forward in the future.  As usual there were some great study times and the reports from them of their appreciation of past camps was most encouraging and they want them to continue although in a slightly different format.  Some are planning camps of various kinds in their own countries.

Just to let you know how the Lord works sometimes and gives us that wonderful assurance that we are doing just what He wants!  We were driving to Oradea from Makfalva, nearly a 5 hour journey and we knew we would need fuel at Cluj, a large city which we were to take the ring road around.  Just outside Cluj we stopped for diesel, but the garage had none!  We drove on knowing that there were many more around the ring road.  We came to the sign post – Oradea – so we turned but a couple of miles along there we realised it was not the ring road we were expecting and while it was a lovely drive through forests, up in the mountains beside resort lakes, there were no fuel stations and we were getting very low. In fact the range trip computer was soon reading 2 miles left and as you can guess Amaryllis was praying hard!  Soon the trip read zero and only after another 3 miles did we see the main road again; but only to find it was the new trans-Transylvania Highway that is not yet open!  Passing underneath it we stopped at a junction where the tarmac stopped!  While we were wondering what to do, an estate car pulled up at the same junction from one of the construction camps; so I went over to ask the way and where was the nearest fuel station!  One of the two men said - 30 Km!  I said – big problem, empty fuel tank!  After much ‘umming and awing’, they were Hungarians with very little English, so they signed – follow us.  We did, wondering what was going to happen, after another 2 miles they turned into a small dirt road where there were more lorries parked up; and they stopped. Amaryllis asked – oh dear what is going to happen?  I simply said – the Lord knows exactly, we can trust Him!  I stopped behind them and got out of the car.  The men got out of their car and opened the boot – filling the boot were six large drums, 35 litres of diesel in each!  They took one, put it on the roof of our car and with a large hose pipe, we had 35 litres of diesel in a  couple of minutes, all for 150 Lei; that’s pump price!  And it was the ring road to Oradea, the outer, scenic one!  Faithful Lord!  Still the God of the cruise of oil and the man with a pitcher on his head!  We can still expect miracles today!

It is so good to know that we are doing what the Lord wants of us and we seek His further blessing; we have seen some and await more; He is faithful!  But what of the future?  That is very hard to say, we did find it very tiring and Amaryllis had an angina attack after a migraine/bilious bout; earlier I had a touch of mild malaria after being in too much sun; so, now as pensioners we need to be realistic as to what we can do. However, the need is even greater than ever so we do desire to help where and when we can.  After various discussions with the young believers who really emphasised the need for the International Camp and other possibilities as well; the following is an idea of what is being planned for next year -

Frystak - Family Camp.

Homorod - Children and Youth Camps.

Domos - Hungarian Outreach Week or Family Camp.

International Camp – Probably Hungary

Church/National Teaching Requests -

in Romania; Hungary; Ukraine; Czech Rep.

Evangelistic Camps, hosted camps in the UK, Weekend Camps are all to be explored by these young people and the Philadelphia Trust Team.

Please pray for the organisers of these camps; Karel Scozs, the Homorod work; Robbie Kabia, Oradea;  Karol Ousky in Prague; Daniel Szorad, Frystak; and others who are seeking to start new camps and works, like Simon and Lyndsey, Slovakia; Victor and Ira in Ukraine.  These and more are very special young people and need our prayers so that they will continue to bear fruit.

So the demand is great; the fields are white and ready to harvest, but the labourers are few, please pray that the Lord will raise up more young helpers in this great work.  It would be great if some British young people could join in the International Camp; a request from the friends.

Amaryllis has two weekend conferences, one in September and the other in October and I have a weekend of meetings in Prague in November and in Luton early December; please pray that we will have health and strength and a real knowledge of the Lord’s presence so that these times will be a blessing to all.

We are grateful for another opportunity to serve the Lord among his people in Eastern Europe this summer and have been busy planning for the camps for many months.  The International Camp that has been running since 1992 now seems to have served its purpose and a more diverse work has taken its place.  Working with the Philadelphia Trust we are to be involved in 6 camps in 3 countries.  We list below the journeys, by car, the dates and places and types of camps we will be at, so we trust that you will be able to follow our progress and be able to pray intelligently that the Lord will add much fruit as His Word is shared with many people.

July 2^nd -  leave Trimsaran for Dover and spend first night in Germany, probably Aachen.

July 4^th – arrive Makfalva, southern Transylvania, Romania, after overnight stop at Sasava, Czech Republic.

July 5^th – 12^th – Homorod, a week’s camp with older children, teens, a mix of evangelism and teaching, Karol, his family and friends pioneered a work in Makfalva some years ago and a testimony has been established with a little blessing, but is awaiting a real breakthrough in the very traditional village.  This has been a wonderful work and many have been helped practically with employment and other ways.  Roger Brind will be arriving for this camp by plane.

July 12^th – 17^th – Homorod, southern Transylvania, Romania; for a week’s Evangelistic Children’s Camp with Karol and other friends from that area. 

July 18^th - Journey 8 hours to Frystak, Czech Repuplic

July  19^th – Family Camp at Frystak; this the second time we have done this camp, mainly consisting of Czech families.  With Roger Brind and Paul Thomas there will be bible studies, children’s meetings and activities, each evening there will be seminars on marriage and family relationships.

July 25^th – stay in Czech Republic and visit friends in Sazava and Prague for one week

Aug 1^st – journey about 5 hrs to Domos Bible Centre, Hungary

Aug 2^nd – Hungarian English Camp – we have helped at this camp on various occasions since 1993 and look forward to meeting some friends from past years as well as some from the International Camp.  English lessons will be given to Hungarian folk who are not believers and we pray that we will see a breakthrough.  Pray for Lazlo, and locals - Bogey, Kristy and Peter who were with us last year and plan to attend again.  There will be Bible teaching and seminars for the believers and we look forward to another good time.  Roger and Susan Brind will be at this camp, also Mark and Rachel Bartlett with their children.

Aug 8^th – Journey about 8 hours to Homorod and Tarkania, Romania

Aug 9^th – 15^th -  2 Camps with the assemblies from Cluj and Oradea.  We have not been to the Assembly at Cluj for some years but met up with some of their youth at Oradea last March and so it will be good to share the Word with them all again; there are many youth in the Cluj assembly, even more than at Oradea.  We look forward to some great Bible studies and seminars on various topics.  Roger and Susan will be at the Cluj camp with Mark and Rachel and their children.  We will then be at the Oradea Camp.

Aug 16^th – 22^nd – Philadelphia Trust Retreat – this camp is mainly for those who have been attending the International Camp over many years and have expressed a desire to explore the way forward after 19 years of the old camps.  We will have Bible studies and various topical seminars as well as a ‘Think Tank’ to explore future camp possibilities.  Roger and Susan will be at this camp, also Mark and Rachel with their children.

Aug 25^th – Probable arrival home date, after 6 camps and 3000 + miles of driving.

We will be spending many hours in the car so please pray for safety on the roads but especially that the Saviour will be exalted in all that we do.  There will be many meetings, studies, seminars and private discussions over nearly 8 weeks.  We seek His glory in the blessing of these dear friends in their needy countries.  All three countries, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania [northern area of Transylvania] are quite different and of course other countries like Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland and Germany will be represented at various camps.  Please pray for wisdom, strength and much grace as we fellowship with new and old friends at these camps.  Many have benefited in the past, we praise God for the fruit that he has been pleased to add, and we believe that there is much we can still help with, it just seeing how and what the Lord wants done, for this year and the future, in His good and perfect will.  Many thanks again for your prayer fellowship, without it the work is hindered!

So far we have the following engagements in the UK for the remainder of the year, besides other individual meetings –

June 28^-30^{th -} weekend in The Haven Christian Centre, Pembroke, with the young people from several assemblies in west Glamorgan, we will be about 40- 50 attending.  A number of these are new converts, recently baptised so we look to the Lord for blessing.

Oct 2^nd-4^{th -} Amaryllis at Nicholston House, Gower, for another weekend Bible Conference with the Welsh Ladies Bible Study Group

Oct 17^th – Mumbles Ladies Missionary Conference – Amaryllis to give report and closing message.

Dec 4 – 8^th - Meetings with the Luton Assembly.

                                                                                                                                   – Graham and Amaryllis.                   21 May 2009

1/             This subject is little understood by many Christians who think that the Human Nature is simply the same as the Old sinful nature; Satan is delighted with that!  Admittedly, it is difficult to understand just how much unregenerate man’s Human Nature is controlled or subjugated by the sinful nature.  Calvinists in particular maintain that man is incapable of any good thing and speak much about the total depravity of mankind, but I am not convinced about this.  Certainly man is incapable of doing any good works that are meritorious with God, that we can be sure of, for the Bible makes it clear we’re dead in trespasses and sins and nothing we can do will give us any credit with God; again the Old Testament tells us that all our righteousness’ are as filthy rags before a holy, righteous God.  It is only through the blood of Christ and faith in his Name can we have any standing before God, salvation is in Christ alone!

2/             However we must see that altruism is still operative in many societies today and people benefit from the good works of others who are not Christian per see.  A common phrase by many who have made money is – it’s time to put something back!  How is this possible?  In the western world where we have been so blessed by nearly 2000 years of Christianity it is clear that the gospel has created a better society than can be found in most of the old cultures across the world.  But in the 21^st century we see our communities being attacked on every hand by evil forces in a way that has not been seen for a very long time and unless the churches wake up from their slumber there are going to be some very serious consequences to face.  There are plenty of evidences that we are witnessing the serious decay and death of western society and only the gospel is capable of stopping the rot.  We need to preach effectively and fruitfully and only the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit in preachers and churches can produce that, we need a major revival and awakening once again.  More on that later!

3/             What is the Human Nature? It was created by God for Adam and Eve and it was a beautiful thing until they sinned and that sinful nature was imposed upon them, Rom 11;27.  This is the first and important point, the sinful nature was an addition and one day soon, for all of God’s people, it will be taken away, leaving them, for the first time in the benefit of the human nature that God originally planned for them.  The Church of Christ and any others who inhabit the New Jerusalem, Rev 21, will benefit by the fact that the spiritual nature will have full and uninterrupted control so that the Human Nature will have total freedom to express itself and they will probably be able to do all manner of things that those who inhabit the New Earth will not be able to do.  We cannot be sure about what we will be able to do, but from the clues we are given in scripture it seems that it will be wonderfully amazing when the mortal puts on immortality and corruption takes on incorruption, 1Cor 15;51ff.  We cannot imagine, without the Spirit’s help, what God can do for us now, 1Cor 2;9, let alone in that bright day! [1]

4/             So today what is the Human Nature and how does it work?  The Human Nature can possibly be thought of as the whole man, it is how the whole man works in relation to all external circumstances and combines man’s soul and body in all its relational experiences socially and with nature.  It’s our life in our bodies, the experiential circumstances we find hour by hour with people, with work, with animals with the natural world, a very wide experience.  How does it work?  That is far more difficult to understand!  How can it work? - is probably a helpful question to ask, for it can hardly work in many circumstances because the sinful nature is so dominant in most cultures.  We could say that the Human Nature is how a man works and relates to the culture of his society.  Culture is most important to think about in this context, because culture is - man finding a way to live – it is shaped by many forces, including the gospel and other human and even demonic influences.  When culture has become so influenced by evil then it is almost impossible for the Human Nature to operate because life is so highly regulated by many taboos and various rules and regulations. The self mutilation that is common in many ancient cultures horrifies those who have not be exposed to such practices, but such things as female castration and extreme body piercing, they seem to be offensive to nature and certainly, God never wanted such awful practises.  Christians do well to avoid any kind of body piercing and tattoos that mark the beautiful body given by God.

5/             But culture is a very powerful force and the more extreme the practises that are developed, the harder they are to break down.  William Carey took nearly thirty years to get the awful practise of burning live widows on their husbands pyres and practises such as cannibalism and in Africa today, killing of dead chief’s wives  are still practised.  Why is culture such a powerful force?  Most such extremes of cultures are demon controlled and are therefore cultures of great fear, it is hard for western minds to comprehend such things, having not experienced them first hand.  What we must remember is that culture is never static and it degenerates over time and generations unless impacted by the gospel; new practises are brought in by those in power to keep their control over their subjects and so we get these extremities which are almost invariably demonic and people suffer horribly until the gospel comes to bring its beautiful freedom in Christ.  Education broke down some extreme cultural practices when the power Lords in the cultures wanted aspects of the ‘civilisation’ that they saw in the west. This was prevalent when the western world started colonising other countries in the c19.  There are many inherent problems in this and these caused many problems for genuine mission which came along after those initial conditioning processes set up huge barriers for the gospel.

6/             So the Human Nature is seldom able to work and ‘be itself’ because the old sinful nature is totally dominant, it needs help and the gospel is the only real answer.  In 2008 a conference participant at the Billy Graham Training Centre at The Cove, North Carolina,  asked Dr. Blackaby this question – What is the future for the USA?  The following is an abridged version of his response - If you put the United States up against the Scriptures, we’re in trouble.  I think we’re very close to the judgment of God.  The problem of America is not unbelievers; the problem of America is the people of God. There are just as many divorces and abortions in the churches as outside the churches.  George Barna did a survey of 152 separate items comparing the lost world and the churches, and he said there’s virtually no difference between the two.  Our gospel is cancelled by the way we live.

So I’ve always said if things get darker in America, the problem is not with darkness, it’s just acting according to its nature. The problem is with the light.  The light no longer dispels the darkness.  All the way through the Bible, judgment came on the nation when God’s people would not return unto Him.

Right now I believe God’s people don’t even think they’ve departed.  We don’t take the Scriptures seriously.  I think this generation knows less about Scripture than any generation in my lifetime.  We’re reading the books of men, but not the Book of God. Therefore, when God moves in judgment, the average person will not even recognize that it’s God.  It’s my own personal feeling that we may well be the generation that is alive when our Lord returns, because we’re seeing the movement of God according to Scripture.  When Jesus first came, who missed Him?  God’s people. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  It was the religious leaders who missed Him!

Now what about all the Scriptures that tell us about the return of our Lord?  The details of His return are clearly noted, but many of God’s people are not even thinking about it.  Jesus said the last sign before His return would be the Gospel being preached to every people group, Mt.24:14.  When David Barrett put out a list of every known un-reached people group several years ago, there were some 2,300.  I talked with the CEO of a major mission-sending agency, and the last word I had is that, as of this moment, every solitary un-reached people group has some group that has made a commitment to take the Gospel to them.  That’s the first time in history.  If you consider that and read Matthew 24, what would you conclude?

How then should we live?  The tragedy is that it’s the people of God and their leaders who are totally unaware of the ways of God.

This is a long answer to a short question, but my answer is this: It depends on the people of God.  Are we going to be a people like God has asked us to be?  Will we stop fussing within our churches? God’s people hold the destiny of America.  Don’t fuss at the world.  It’s just acting according to its nature.  We’ve got to be salt and light again.  We’ve got to have an observable difference.  Is the darkness being dispelled where your church is?  In the workplace where God has put you, and in the high school where God has put your kids?  It’s not building bigger and better buildings and having larger budgets or attendance.  That’s not what God is looking for.  He’s looking for salt and light that can radically change the places were God has put us.

My heart is very, very, very heavy about the day in which we live, primarily because people do not even recognize that they have moved from what God wants them to be.  The question for every Christian to ask is not - Am I fulfilling my job description?  But, is my life making a difference?  I don’t want to keep living and not making a difference!  We need to examine our walk with God.  We need to be able to say - Father, I’ve sinned.  I’ve lived without my life making any difference.  Now can God rectify this?  He’s an expert at it!  That’s why Jesus said in His prayer - I don’t pray for the world; I pray for these because as go these, so goes the redemption of the rest of the world.  So God’s attention right now is on His own people, and if I gave one statement it would be.  The future of America rests in our hands.

The UK must be in a similar if not worse scenario.  So the Human Nature is conditioned by the many forces that society brings upon it and we are all ‘children of our day’.  I would love to know now what I will know in 30 years time, looking back to see just how strongly the influence of our culture makes us what we are.  Christians must also remember that established churches have always developed their own culture, a religious culture, which is not wrong until it hinders our perception of the truth of scripture.  However, the gospel can, in times of revival when the churches are what they should be, bring about a ‘Christian culture’ in society which is a great blessing and benefit to it.  AW Tozer wrote that society owes Christianity a great debt as it brings down crime, drunkenness and violence, all of which cost society a great deal of money; UK politicians understand now that alcohol costs the National Health Authority hundreds of billions of pounds ever year.  Ah yes, the gospel can make a great difference in society and at the beginning of the 21^st century that is greatly needed again.

7/             How does the gospel make such a difference to society?  It is well recorded in many books what a community is like when the churches experience revival.  In the village where I have lived in Wales for 45 years there are 3 chapels, a church and a Gospel Hall and about a century ago everyone of the 1000 inhabitants were attending services every Sunday; not everyone were Christians, but everyone went to chapel because they did not want to be seen as wicked people who did not go to chapel.  That is what happens when God is seen to be among his people!  This is the fear of God in the community!  1Cor 14;13.[2] This is not a fear of awful dread, but a simple, awesome respect that makes ordinary people behave better than usual.  There is a great example at Sinai, all Israel knew that Jehovah was up that mountain and no one dared go past those marker stones which God had told Moses to place on the slopes of the mountain to set Him apart from an evil people.  Similarly, later, in the Tabernacle, all Israel knew that God was behind that curtain and on the day of Atonement they tied a rope around the High Priest just in case he died in that august and Holy Presence, so they could drag out the body without going in!  This is the great lack today, churches are seen as totally irrelevant to the community and Christians are laughed at, simply because God is not among them, the Risen Christ is outside the door, knocking on the door of most churches, wanting to go inside for the blessing and power of the gospel to be known as it should be, Rev 3;20.[3]  The call to repentance is a very real problem for most.  Many ‘Christians’, Laodacian in character, believe they are ok, but many others realise they have a problem, but lack men of character who would be willing or able to deal with the problems.  All considered, it is a pretty grim situation and these are direct causes for the desperately poor state of society.  In this poor situation the sinful nature is in direct control and the Human Nature has been almost completely sidelined and there will be continued decline until the church situation is reversed.  Admittedly, there is still some altruistic work going on, but it is almost insignificant to the problems we face.  The need can only be met by a great geographic revival[4] of the churches.  However, it is our Christian heritage that is largely responsible for this altruism, in most cultures this is not the case.

8/             It is difficult to arrive at a conclusion as to what the Human Nature will be like in the New Earth depicted in Revelation c21, throughout eternity, but it will be a wonderfully beautiful thing as its peoples live in total harmony and communion with God.  I guess that the New Earth will be Eden developed and man will have the whole planet as a beautiful garden.  We can only guess at what life will be like without ‘time’ as we know it, but we can gain some clues as it seems it will be something akin to the Millennial Kingdom that we are told a little about in Isaiah c11 and c65, that shows us an amazing scene of the whole of nature in complete harmony with each other and mankind and God as well.  The other picture in scripture of course is the few verses that speak of Adam and Eve in Eden with God; I love to try to imagine what it was like; it must have been a great adventure exploring that wonderful creation!  I believe that God explained it all to Adam, in his wonderful Human Nature,  as he found all the kinds of animals, plants and trees.  Adam’s fall was very great indeed and probably he was probably unable to convey to his descendants what it was like in Eden.  Therefore, few of the generations from Adam to Noah pleased God.

9/             It is even harder to think of what Adam himself was like, as we today are conditioned by 6000 years of sin and that is a great conditioning to be sure.  It is important that, as we try to think what he was like, we do not attribute our ways of thinking to him, no, surely he did not think like we think!  In total and beautiful innocence he would have operated in ways unlike our ways, no evil to condition him, he was fresh off God’s drawing board and at the height of the power of Human Nature, the intellect and body in perfect union and  function.  His union with Eve must have been, wow, we can barely imagine it, but even that is what God wants his people today to enjoy, by the implementation of the Doctrine of the Headship of Christ that is stressed in the New Testament; yes the gospel is able to regain Paradise!  If we could get a better understanding of what he was like we could have a better understanding of what that New Earth will be like.  This is not wishful thinking, for it can help inspire us, as God’s people, so that we can make our communities better places to be, so that more of that beautiful Human Nature can be seen in our communities.

10/          The more I think about this, I realise that the church’s emphasis in the gospel has not been as it should be.  It appears that we have preached half a gospel, to the wrong people, in the wrong language!  Jesus said that - He will build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it, so have we been wrong to be so concerned in saving people from hell when He has made it His job to do that?  After all, we don’t save, we’re just the ‘sowers’ and the ‘waterers’.  We do see in the New Testament is that he tells us to be salt of the earth and light of the world and to preach the gospel to the poor so that our communities can be far better places than they are.  Many have criticised a social gospel, but from the New Testament I clearly see that is what it is.  Children of the Light dispel the darkness and that will make for a great community.  Living in love, 1John 4;12, would make a fabulous society to live in!  While we are not of this world we certainly are in it!  So if we live in love, that will impact society, that is what he said – by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another, John 13;35.  It’s happened before and God can do it again, if we let him!  If only!!!  So, firstly, our ‘fire insurance’ gospel message has missed the point, poor people need answers for today, many suffer a hell on earth with rampant drug and drink addictions, incest and all manner of child abuse, broken homes and all the many sins of a decadent evil society.  The church’s failure has been great and it’s high time to make things right by showing that Jesus came to bring us abundant life, here and now, John 10;10.  Secondly, the target of gospel has been wrong; however, I’m not sure that there has been a target for most churches, for they have their weekly services and that’s it.  While some have evangelised a little wider, most did not follow the Saviour’s pattern and target the poor.  It is seen historically that the church has hardly impacted the working classes, organisations like the Salvation Army have tried in this respect, but overall the influence has been far too small.  Jesus’ commission was to preach the gospel to the poor and needy so it’s certainly ours too.[5]  Thirdly, too many churches, while preaching that half gospel, also use a 19^th century language to take a 1^st century message to a 21^st century audience, just to further compound the problems!  We have to be relevant to our peers, more, church leaders must facilitate church youth to be relevant to their peers.  This latter problem has been one of the areas of almost total failure, so much so that we see most older churches with no youth at all.

11/          An 80 year old evangelist told me at the turn of the new millennium that – it is time to start all over again!  But few church ‘leaders’, even though they realise they have major problems, are prepared to try to address the problems so that we can begin to start afresh.  It is time to ditch all our old preconceptions and traditions and take up the New Testament afresh to see what church really should be!  We will have a shock!  If we get over that shock we have many beautiful surprises at what we will find as our churches move into wonderful fruitfulness.  We will probably move into a church planting program greater than ever before as God is able to work mightily through his word and his people to a very needy, broken society.

12/          When the Human Nature is set free and empowered by the spirit powered, Holy Spirit enabled, New Nature, we will see wonderful things, new creations in Christ Jesus!  The filling of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for this, that wonderful power from on high, only this is sufficient for the full blessings of God’s will to be enjoyed day by day.  This is what it means when Paul says – filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, Eph 3;19.

13/          Now I am not suggesting that we should not mention judgment or hell in our gospel preaching, I almost invariably do, but I recently have much more emphasised the fact of the ‘eternal and abundant life’ that starts the moment one is saved.  This very much agrees with the preaching in the book of Acts, in fact not once is the word ‘hell’ used in any of the sermons recorded.  Even the word ‘judgment’ is only used once, by Paul in his private talks with Felix and that is alongside the need of self control and doing good.  Off course, the Saviour mentioned hell even more than he did heaven, but still his emphasis was on the abundant life for here and now, not on coming judgment.  I am come to bring you life, life more abundant, he proclaimed, John 10;10; we need to have this same emphasis because, as we have already thought, many people are enduring a hell on earth.  The emphasis on how terrible hell is, is also somewhat overstated because of the literalising of the ‘fire and brimstone’ picture used by the Lord.   People who live and die in their sins, will remain in their sins, many verses speak of this, the terror of hell is just that, there is no salvation available any more.  Hence it will be worse for Capernaum, Matt 11;20ff, because they had so many opportunities to be saved, yet they rejected him.

14/          Actually it is not what or even how we preach, so much as - why we preach it – this is the main criteria; God will bless the most unlikely methods of proclaiming the gospel when he sees we are serious about it and it is accompanied by a real demonstration of the love of Christ, accompanied with lots of prayers and tears.  Love for Christ is the only motivation.  Paul makes that abundantly clear, if we do it out of duty then we are not only wasting our time but we actually hinder the work of God, we had better keep our mouths shut than preach in any method without love.

15/          At a conference recently one speaker said – the human nature never limits the spirit; I wish he had emphasised and explained more on this statement, but it did gel my thoughts to write this paper.  So we can see that the Human Nature does not need to ‘be saved’, it only needs to be set free from the shackles of the sinful nature that bind it so strongly, Acts 11;27.  Adam did not need salvation in Eden, he only needed to do as he was told.  So we can look forward to the day when our Human Nature can be fully and completely set free when that old sinful nature is finally taken away.  Both those people in the New Jerusalem and on the New Earth will enjoy this.  Those in the City will have spirit powered bodies with no blood, just like the Risen Lord’s, Luke 24;39, while it appears that, like Adam in Eden, those on the New Earth will have blood as the life power.  How wonderful!  What an amazing Creator our Saviour was and will be as he makes all things new, and he will still maintain all things by the word of his power.

16/          For the child of God today that power of the old sinful nature is broken at their conversion, it was crucified at Calvary and we need to live in the good of this.  We don’t have to wait to get to heaven to have the victory over sin, every morning as we wake we can thank God that - we don’t have to sin today!  So many never really prove this, they settle for a poor and feeble religion where they attend meetings and do the best they can but it is only the old sinful nature polished up to be religious.  This is one of Satan’s greatest ploys, he doesn’t really mind people being saved, he doesn’t worry about people attending church services while he can keep their eyes on each other rather than Jesus.  It is while we keep our eyes on Jesus that Satan gets really worried and will attack us with all manner of means, just to get us back under the control of the world, the flesh and the pride principle, that old sinful nature.  So many church leaders have alternative agendas, some imagine a church that is a set of doctrines, an ideology, not a company of people for whom Christ died, while others see congregations as sermon fodder, they just love preaching.  Many others only see the congregations as cash dispensers so that they can live a life of luxury with their prosperity gospel, while their people live in poverty.  Many leaders are merely policemen upholding long worn out traditions that keep the people in misery, bondage and legality!  There is today, more than ever, an immense need for spiritual elders and overseers who can care for the flock of God, men who will spend hours in prayer, men who will devote themselves to pastoral care, visiting the all the church regularly, getting to know them closely, so that they can discern their spiritual needs and meet them with the love of Christ.  This is the greatest need of the day and it seems that it is not going to be met by the older men, so we need younger men to study scripture just to understand what the work of an overseer is, so that they can begin to do the work themselves, without being ordained or elected; for in scripture, overseers are recognised as such for the work that they are already doing, not elected or ordained to by an office.  Not only have most churches not understood what spiritual leadership is, they don’t know how it comes about!  There is a huge need for the people of God to follow the pattern of the New Testament as well as the doctrine; but then, most of all, the need is to fall in love with Christ all over again; many for the first time, because so few know what firstlove is.  Having been saved in mediocre, barren churches far too many believers have never seen what the power of firstlove is like, they merely follow what they see and churches slide ever deeper into deception, declension and more closures are evidenced every week.

17/          Real churches will have real leaders who can facilitate the majority of members to be effective and fruitful in the exercise of their gifts, 1Cor 12, and in their good works, Eph 2;10, so that our communities are better places to live.  Overseers who care for the spiritual welfare of all, and deacons who run a smooth organisation, so that the whole church operates as it should.  Then the church will be the light that exposes evil and the salt that preserves that which is good and every man’s Human Nature can be freer to express itself in good deeds as the influences for evil fly away as the fear of God is clearly evident among his people.

One could be forgiven for thinking that ‘no’ is the answer to this question when looking at the plethora of churches that Christendom sports today.  However, by looking at the New Testament we see that there is a church pattern that is quite distinct, but the question is – do we need to follow it?  When we consider that much of scripture is all about principles and motives then we are right to say that methods are not so important and even a brief look at church history bears that out.  We all quickly affirm that we follow the doctrines of the New Testament, so why is it that we are so slow to follow the practises?

I would be the first to agree that methods have to change, often, to meet the needs of the community which we should be serving, but even then, if the Holy Spirit has recorded a pattern in scripture, as well as the doctrine, would it not be safe to follow it? The pattern is flexible enough to follow, it is not cast in concrete so as to be irrelevant to the needs of successive generations.  It is still a matter of concern that too many preachers are addressing a 21^st century audience with a 1^st century message in a 19^th century language; it does not work, we have to identify with the people we talk to.  More importantly we have to be respected by that audience, if not, they will certainly not listen to ‘our gospel’.

Let me give one example of many of the methods that we find in the New Testament.  Acts c2 records the great day of Pentecost, we all love that chapter, but we fail to follow the details – all 3000 were baptised the same day as they were saved!  But we don’t do that, do we?  We have to wait 3 months to make sure their lives are changed; they have to do the 6 weeks of Baptismal classes?  No, we don’t read about any of that, more, they were added to the church the same day!  Oh dear, we can’t do it like that today!  Or can we?  I believe we will be safe when we follow the scriptural pattern of doing things, simply because it is not very clear about how most things were done.  Thankfully scripture is very unclear about many things so we do have make our own minds up about what is best for today.  But where scripture is clear, I believe it would be best and safest to follow the recorded pattern.  One more example – the ‘choosing of Matthias’ to fill ‘Judas’ seat’ – wow, we don’t do that today do we, oh no, we’re far to educated and intelligent for that; aren’t we?  The facts is that we do not even have the simple faith to believe that God can bring the white stone out of the bag for the right man for the job.

So, here is my mission vision for a large city suburb situation where there has been some successful evangelism by a group of friends, one of whom lives in that suburb and where there is an opportunity for new churches to follow the New Testament pattern.  Say –

3 Friends did some intensive evangelisation in busy city suburb, where there was little gospel testimony, for one summer and saw about 30 people saved as a result.  How do they go about nurturing those converts, many of whom are very keen to learn the scripture?  They got together for prayer and to consider the way forward and decided that the simplest way was to form a new church in the house of the one friend who lived in the community and that for 6 months the other 2 friends would drive in alternate weeks to help out in the teaching and encouragement of the converts.

For 1 month there was serious Bible study 2 or 3 times a week, plus prayer meetings and pastoral care of the converts on a regular basis by ‘friend 3’ who had a real shepherd heart and could get close to people easily and they soon valued his care for them.  One night every week he would visit at least 2 homes to see the converts on a regular basis; this is true pastoral care.   One of the things that the new converts were advised to do was to spread the word and tell people what a great difference Jesus had made to their lives.  Most of them didn’t need much encouragement, they had experienced such an amazing change that they were testifying straight away and people in the community were beginning to ask questions, some very serious.  Before the end of the second month, before the 3 friends had really decided on a way forward the next batch of converts started happening.  Such was the genuine nature of the testimony of some of the original converts that family, friends and neighbours could clearly see the great change and wanted the new found peace and joy that was very evident in their lives.

The 3 friends now knew that God was at work in a big way and wanted have a clear idea of what God wanted them to do, so they set up a weekend of prayer and fasting, so as to seek God’s guidance for the way forward.  It started on a Friday night and during the evening they had a strong sense that they ought to invite those converts whose testimonies had caused others to be saved.  Early on the Saturday morning the phone went in 6 households and within an hour, 6 more people were in the prayer meeting.  They read copious amounts of scripture, they discussed, searched and spent hours in prayer.  Tea time came and went, no food, they were far too absorbed in prayer.  They broke much later for refreshments but even as they ate, they still discussed.  One of the subject that came up was baptism and some of the new converts were eager to obey scripture in this.  The meeting went on into till the early hours before they were satisfied that they had an answer and they all went home much encouraged.

Sunday they all met together, about 36 now, and the 9 shared what they had enjoyed the day before, including the need for all the new believers to be baptised as soon as possible; most were in happy agreement; some younger ones expressed reservations at first because of parents but were soon happy to go ahead.  Most were very impressed although one person was a bit upset that they she had not been invited to the prayer meeting.  They had a time of prayer seeking God’s help and after a while the tone of the meeting changed into real praise and thanksgiving, even 1 or 2 who had said little before prayed so well that the 3 friends were very impressed and truly thankful.  It was a special morning as they closed up with an hour of Bible study in which there was avid discussion of the text.  After, the 3 friends said - we have to meet again, quickly - and arranged to get together that evening.  They all met with all sorts of ideas and a realisation that God was going to move again in mighty saving power.  They prayed and read and then decided that they had to meet as church with all the new converts, planning the next Sunday with a baptism service in the river just 2 blocks away, with testimonies, followed by the first Communion service.  It was an amazing day and hundreds came to watch the baptism, many asking questions and wanting to know more.  The Communion that followed was awesome as some of the people who had asked questions followed them to the house and about 50 people crammed into the little house.  Observing the communion service and the prayer and praise of their neighbours, the new people were stunned and 5 made professions of faith.

That made 38 converts altogether and that was straining the house for meetings.  One of the original converts volunteered - my house is bigger, please come to my house.  That problem was solved, temporarily. 

At this stage the young city church was a mirror image of the Jerusalem church, except they did not have a temple to go to, but all other functions were there and Acts 2;46-47 was just as applicable too.  The converts just loved to be together, every spare moment, they were visiting one another, they devoured the Word of God and hanging on every word the 3 friends were bringing to them.  The 3 friends we taken aback at what was happening, they hardly had time to plan, God was leading the way and their early plans were swept aside.  After 3 weeks of this they met again to discuss the situation.  One of the ‘drive in’ friends, the pastoral care man, was also an able Bible teacher and could see that his gift was desperately needed so agreed to continue coming frequently for the next few weeks.  The 2^nd drive in friend did not want to spend so much time away from his own church and family so he decided that as friend nr 3 was taking the teaching need, he could step back a little but wanted to maintain close contact so he would come over every second week on Sundays for the main services.

Week 4 saw 3 more converts through the testimonies of the originals who were now almost headline local news due to the major change in their lives; some had been pretty notorious before. The little company only had to let it be known in the community that they were having a get together, then many others would want to come as well, sometimes making a gathered company of nearly 60 people; the 2^nd house was beginning to feel the strain!  After week 5 if they wanted purely a church meeting for specific teaching they had to keep it to themselves or there would be others coming too. 

Week 5 was an amazing week and due to the interest of the community the church asked the local school if they could have a room to hold a larger meeting for all from the community who wanted to come.  They agreed and gave the word around freely and Friday night came and the school hall was packed with 150 people.  The 3 friends were there and were amazed at what God was doing as people eagerly listened to their gospel presentation and a few testimonies of the new converts, these was the highlight, there were many ‘ohs and ahs’ around the congregation as they told of their new lives in touch with Jesus.  15 people made professions of faith and the 3 friends and 2 or 3 of the original converts decided to hold a baptism the next morning in the river.  The news went around the suburb like wild fire as 2 of the converts were very notorious wild men, who most would not believe that they could be changed.  There were 250 people lining the river as the 15 went down to be baptised and as a result of the testimonies given, another 12 people came after to make professions of faith.  On Sunday they gathered again in the school hall as house nr 2 was far too small, what were they going to do?  They prayed and prayed, all day Sunday they hardly left the hall as they searched the scriptures and the 2 friends continually taught them all they knew, and some more besides, the Holy Spirit was at work.

After much deliberation the company, now about 55 decided to remain as a house church even if they had to use 2 houses.  So, the 2 biggest houses were set as the meeting venues and those nearest to each house would attend that gathering; the 2 friends taking one each.  Week 6 saw another baptism and some amazing testimonies and another 6 professions of faith after, as well as 3 more in the 2^nd house church as they had some neighbours in to one meeting.  Week 7 saw a similar pattern and by the end of week 10 the number of the 2 churches had grown to nearly 100 people and the houses were again straining!  A similar decision was held to utilise the original house for another gathering so week 11 saw 3 churches in 3 different streets in the suburb that was really beginning to buzz, the conversation in every café and bus stop was the ‘house churches’.  Week 12 saw another development, 2 newspaper people came to see what was going on!  The reporter interviewed the 3 friends, then started going around the converts.  Amazed they then went into the cafes and taverns to see what was being said in the community.  The article that appeared in the paper the next weekend was to bring further developments, some would be bad, but at first it all added to the general excitement of a community that was beginning to change.  Friends and neighbours who had taunted the early converts that it was - all a flash in pan and they wouldn’t last - were beginning to realise they had been badly wrong and were now taking these people very seriously and treating them with no little respect; Acts 2;47 once again.

There were baptisms every Saturday morning for weeks and by week 16 a fourth house in another street had been added, again, the believers in and close to that street would attend that house, never mind where they had been before.  Now the 3 friends were being really stretched and nr 3 friend decided he had to relocate into the community and leave his original church to meet the great demands for Bible teaching.  Friend nr 2 decided he would have to come every Sunday and/or find some extra help.  By week 18 the 3 friends met to review the situation and realised that they had to start looking for potential leaders from among the new converts. They had to start a training program for elders and deacons.  There were several of the new converts who were already heavily involved in the daily organisation, in fact the 2 friends were leaving this to them increasingly, so they realised they must make this ‘official’.  2 people were recognised in each of the 4 churches as deacons, they were already doing the work and the friends had no problem in advising the believers that they could recognise them as deacons because they had proved themselves at this work already for some time.  Everyone, almost, was delighted and a real buzz went round the groups as they saw for themselves that they were meeting the needs that the churches had.  There were 2 people who were a bit sour that they had not been recognised as deacons but some prompt attention by the 2 friends soon calmed things down – if they wanted to do the work, then do it, don’t wait to be asked; there’s plenty to do!

By week 20 with baptisms every week, the number of believers had grown to almost 200 and a 5^th house had been added to the group.  They did not see each other as 5 churches, but a few of the deacons were beginning to realise that this might be the outcome if God continued to work, which certainly seemed to be the case.  But it was week 21 that the bombshell struck and the 3 friends realised straight away what was happening and wished that they had foreseen it so that they could have warned the believers properly, Satan was attacking.  The newspaper had continued reports on the growing churches but by the 4^th publication there was a long letter from a church leader in the next district who was condemning the believers as separatists and condemning the 3 friends for evangelising in ‘their patch’.  The 3 realised what was happening as they had received some frosty reaction from a few in their own church in the next town, until it was plain that God was at work and then the church had maintained real prayerful interest and had supported the work with small funds.  But the criticism really hit the new believers and they couldn’t understand it until they had a combined meeting in the school hall to talk it through.  The 3 friends apologised for not having seen it coming and commended them to prayer and encouraged them by telling that they were upsetting Satan’s kingdom big time and that they must expect this in the future, showing the many texts in the New Testament that speak of persecution.  That was sufficient and the 5 groups went back to their respective houses determined not to worry about the criticism if it should continue, the 3 had warned that it probably would, even increase if the churches continued to grow.  That week was the first that there were no converts and that caused further confusion and the 3 friends were continually encouraging them to more prayer and a complete reliance on God for his help, and that the Spirit would continue to work if the churches kept praying and praising God, even for their problems.  There were many fervent prayer gatherings during the 22^nd week and the 5 churches all saw some more converts on the weekend.  The very next night they arranged a baptism just to show the community that God was still working and hundreds lined both sides of the river which led to 10 more converts who were baptised immediately upon the public confession of their faith.  It was an amazing evening and was a great encouragement to all.

But by week 23 the leaders from the church who had criticised them publically paid them a visit and warned them that they had better come to their church or go away.  There was immediate response from the original 30 who said – you never came to tell us this news, you never preached to us or showed us any kindness like our 3 friends have, so who are you to start telling us to come to your church, no thank you!  After some time of rather pointed discussions the leaders left muttering warnings of trouble if they continued their ‘separatist movement’.  This was followed by further rumblings in the newspaper.  However, this was now joined by some of the community politicians who were very much impressed by the new churches and condemned the interfering church as ‘meddlars’.  This only caused more debate and some of the deacons voiced their concerns to the 3 friends.  The prayed long and hard and decided to maintain their silence and let God work it out his way.  This prayerful silence worked and God was pleased to save more people until by week 40 there were about 300 believers now gathered in 7 churches in 7 streets in the suburb.

By this time the original 6 deacons had all been recognised as elders, along with 6 more and there was much joy among the churches as each church now had 2 elders taking more and more responsibility in the churches.  More deacons were also recognised and most of the groups were functioning well.  Financially there was an impact as well as the former wasters were now showing their true abilities and earning money and collections in the churches were mounting week by week.  After week 20 the deacons had started to allocate some surplus funds to needy folk among them, bringing much relief to formerly, very sad homes.  Now we see the parallels with Acts c4.

Week 30 saw some disturbing events when one of the houses where one church met was attacked by some mobsters and much damage was caused.  But this really drew the churches together in an outpouring of prayer and all pooled together and a freewill offering proved more than sufficient to restore all the damage and to get some extra hymnbooks as well.  There were mutterings around the community and they sensed that it was an outside job, set up by the church in the next district, there was trouble afoot.  The elders met and issued a statement pleading for calm, no one had been hurt and all the damage restored,  But the community were watching and 3 weeks later the hoodlums returned but were spotted and roughed up by the youth and men of the community, who never attended church before, but afterwards attended and some of them were saved.  God works in wond’rous ways, his marvels to perform, he plants his footsteps in the waves and rides upon the storm!

By the 1^st anniversary of the founding of the churches there were 8 house churches in 8 different streets with nearly 400 new believers and community leaders and politicians were beginning to take serious notice of some of the things the churches were doing.  They appreciated the way they were getting into the local schools and all the children highly respected them as they took assemblies, RE classes and were beginning to help in extra-curricular activities as well.  Girls sewing and cooking classes had just been started and there was talk of the churches organising a local sports league in games and athletics.  They had promised that if the youth, previously very wayward and rebellious, would come to regular practises a football league could be organised and they would provide new strip for them.  The police station was also reporting a reduction in crime and prostitution and could only account for it by showing that former criminals and prostitutes were now regularly attending the churches.  Now Matt c5 was being implemented as the church was showing, simply by their good living, just how evil these evils were and as some low characters were saved, others crawled away into dark alleys and never came any more.  The police, thankful for a reduction in their workload had identified the hoodlums as from the neighbourhood of the other church and obviously initiated by the hostile leaders.  The elders told the police that no charges would be made and this caused quite a wave of admiration, maybe some bewilderment as well; but it all made the standing of the new churches very high in the eyes of their neighbours.

By this time some of the converts had developed amazingly and the 3 friends, were now helped by another respected Bible teacher from their home church.  They could see that some real elders were arising from the churches, men who could identify and meet the needs of others and despite one or two areas of concern, it was going very well.  One of the original converts who had first been appointed as a deacon and then an elder was proving to be rather strong minded and demanding that others do as he say, taking no notice of the contributions of others in leadership.  The 2 friends decided to act and see the man to try to reason with him, pointing out that his behaviour was condemned in scripture, they told him he was fast becoming like Diotrophes, 2John.  They hoped and prayed that it would be sufficient, but knew that Satan had other plans to upset God’s work!  They now had to be watchful for the counterfeit, the Pretenders, Satan’s 5^th column in God’s churches, Matt 13;24ff, they are always there and it is the elders job to find out who so as to minimise their impact on the true.

The friends also saw that some of the other elders were imitating them and had initiated a pastoral care system in their local area. They commended them and had several meetings together to advise what they had to look out for, what they were up against and to pray much as their strength was to be in God alone.  Other gifts were also becoming evident, evangelists and teachers besides the elders, were exercising their new found abilities and the churches were being strengthened considerably, they were all contributing in some ways.  Deacons were noting natural abilities and vocational skills that could be utilised in the churches and the communities, and many were blessed in giving and others, more needy, were blessed to receive.

Every month the 8 churches would hire a large public hall to have times of fellowship, as the friends saw that while they were now 8 independent, autonomous local churches, they needed to keep together on occasions to prevent any division creeping in and so that the community can see that the love of each other and the love to be together, John 13;35.  The more they did this the more society was impacted, for the community saw something they have never seen anywhere.  When people see believers enjoying themselves praising God, they will see that all those good things among Christians, that come only from this great God and they will be convicted of their sin and cry out for mercy, knowing that God is among his people, 1Cor 14;24.  So the river will be in use yet again and more people will be saved as they see wasted wretches coming alive in Jesus Christ!

While the elders can keep those churches holy and free from the sins that Satan will try to bring into them; while they can maintain that love, joy and peace, visible among the believers, in their gatherings, in their work places, in their homes; then those churches will maintain their fruitfulness, the much fruit will continue to be born, it will be fruit that will last and God is glorified in those lives that have been turned from darkness into light, from vile hatred into love, peace and joy; from a desperate lack of trust, to a community that overflows with compassion and where evil people are afraid to be seen as evil people, because they know that God is among his people.

We could continue, but I think we can see the thrust here, this would go on and on until that city suburb would be full of the knowledge of God and there would be a house church in every street and everyone in the community would go to the churches.  Not everyone would be believers, but they would go to church because they would not want to be seen as evil people who do not go to church!  By their 3^rd or 4^th anniversary the churches would be established enough to buy or build a building in a central location that would be large enough to hold all of the believers for occasional fellowship meetings to maintain the togetherness that they enjoyed.  This multi function building would also be used for a united witness to the community and help people to see that all these individual churches are united, that is a powerful witness.  You think that’s fanciful and impossible, then you don’t know your church history because it happened in the UK and the USA and many other places in our world.  It happened in the village where I now live, it was over 100 years ago now and it needs to happen all over again.  I asked our County Councillor what were the major problems in the village and she said – parenting skills!  We don’t even know how to bring up our children, what have we come to?  Why do we see such vileness on our streets and on our television screens, why is there so much crime, why do so few go into proper marriage relationships, why do so many divorce having gone into marriage, why same sex marriages, why are our youth committing suicide at alarming rates as they see no point nor purpose to the life they see all around them?  It’s because there is no love in churches!  The first love that blazed from the early days could not be maintained for ever; why?  Well, Satan is a very clever enemy and knows all the tricks and 1^st generation churches rarely have the benefit of the hindsight that 2^nd and 3^rd generation believers have so as to be able to combat his evil ways.  But scripture has all the answers and elders who really want to prevent decline setting in will be at much prayer so that they are able to meet the needs of a vulnerable, young church.   Sooner or later the first love will be lost, that blazing love for the Christ who died for them wanes and the power is lost as sins are allowed to remain in the churches un-confessed and unchecked.  Elders lose their respect for not dealing with the problems and soon there is no love for each other in the churches, let alone for anyone in the community.  There is no love for a God who loved us and gave us His Son to die for our sin!  Legality takes over from a beautiful spirituality and the church settles into a long sad decline to closer.  The pattern has been see so many times it has become totally predictable with 5 distinct stages – social chaos, brings personal convictions, which brings Biblical consensus and mass converts; this brings a morally aware society.  But as soon as the churches lose their firstlove the long slow decline to the 3^rd generation will commence which results in the next round of social chaos.  Paul’s prophetic words in Acts 20;29;30 are wholly relevant here; elders who lose their way and start twisting scripture and making disciples for themselves are impotent in stopping the fierce wolves coming in and wheedling into leadership where they start their destructive policies.

When God’s people in well established churches turn from their own sins, from their religion, from their traditions, from their selfishness, from their miserable lovelessness, then there might be chance that they will love God, so that they can love their brother and the man down the street, even their enemies who threaten them with doom and destruction.  The call to the church today is just the same as it was to Israel 2500 years ago, Malachi pleaded with them over and again, repent and turn back to God and he will turn back to you!  The Risen Christ stands outside the door of our hearts, outside our churches and warns us that he is about to spit us out of his mouth because we are so insipid in his mouth, lukewarm; does the call to repentance sound in our ears?  Do you hear his pleading voice - open the door, I want to come in.  If you do hear that voice please answer it, please open that door so that our churches can be fruitful once more before the Saviour returns.  Do we really want to stand empty handed at the Judgment Seat of Christ, will we see everything we did for him going up in smoke because it was only wood, hay and straw?  We were preaching the gospel, it was helping missions, it was taking Sunday School Class, so what was wrong?  It was the wrong motivation, we were not doing it for love for Christ, it was just some morbid duty fulfilment, I should do it, so I better had, it was maintenance of old traditions, the dreaded status quo and the Risen Christ hated it all.  The Bema is all about motivation, the secret things revealed, and we will see ourselves as he saw us all the time.  In our present failing churches it seems obvious to me that many in them will stand there empty handed, how can there be anything for God at the Bema, when there was nothing for him on earth?

What can be done to bring Christians and churches to their senses and realise the paucity of their religion and dangerous situation that they are in.  For me, it was a glaring lack of the great love that the New Testament is always talking about, the peace and joy just wasn’t there, never mind the unity that the Saviour prayed for the night before he died.  Another factor will be the realisation of the ineffectiveness of their testimony and the gospel which the Bible says is the POWER of God to salvation; where is it?  Let’s be honest, very few of us westerners have ever seen it in our lifetimes and therefore the public perception of the church is the pits and until that is changed no one will listen to the ‘gospel’ that is preached.  Finally, it was for me, the realisation of my lack of love for Christ and that that lack would cause me to be very ashamed before him at the Bema and the very real possibility that I would stand there empty handed, everything done for him, gone up in smoke.  Love for Christ, firstlove as it is called is a blazing fire, a passion that cannot be quenched, a storm that will not be tamed and it will be fruitful, it will impact those who come under its influences.  Firstlove cannot be discouraged, it will not be put off by persecution for it the power that enabled the martyrs to sing as they were consumed in the fires and prove so many times that their blood is the seed of the church.

When love for Christ characterises a whole church [at least, the leaders and the majority in the church] then they will be an amazing people to be among, it will be joyful place, the fruit of the Spirit will be evident.  It is hard to imagine a community where love, joy, peace, gentleness, humility, patience, goodness, faithfulness and self control are the norm.  Of course many will join them, most people are looking for that kind of thing, because it is totally lacking in society at large.

Love for Christ will revolutionise anyone as his grace floods through their very being.  When he is more to a man then that man is fully alive and God is glorified, John 15;8.  Grace makes us more and more like Christ, it is his grace, the grace he demonstrated all the time of his sojourn as Son of Man.  Changed from glory into glory – ah yes, that’s it, day by day he will become a little more like his Saviour and oh the joy that will mean for that man’s family, he will be the husband his wife longs for, never mind that he actually puts Christ before her, that is the only way he can be the husband she needs.  He will be a father that his children adore, ah the blessedness for children with a father whose firstlove is Christ, they will be well balanced kids who will grow up appreciating all that God has done for them.  Jesus has to take centre stage for us, he is Lord of all, or not at all; Christianity is ‘all or nothing’.  This kind of firstlove will mean that we will spend many hours in prayer, it will mean that we devour the scriptures and we never waste a moment in frivolous activities.  We will appear strange to most people, especially in a lukewarm church and certainly church leaders will feel threatened by such spirituality.  The Jews thought the twelve were drunk at nine on Pentecost  morning, Agrippa thought Paul was mad with much learning and so yes, many will think us strange and avoid us as much as possible.  But for all who get past that, they will enjoy the love of Christ in a whole new way that will bring many to faith in Christ.  Church growth will become significant and the media will start to take notice as communities are revolutionised as drunkenness, drugs and prostitution become rare and children who once were marginalised because of their dysfunctional family situation, will find themselves amazed to be the centre of attention of mums and dads who have had their lives completely turned around.  It is hard to imagine, but all the curses of our broken societies can be silenced, marriage will become the norm, gone will be single mums, same sex marriage and all other forms of perversions, divorce will become rare as the holiness of God will be appreciated by the majority, tolerated by the few and accepted by many.  The justice that Messiah will bring to this sad world is already looked for by the nations, Ref, Isa 11;10.  Anne Graham Lotz makes an important point in her book – I saw the Lord – and says that when we live the life of heaven – it keeps on living, even after my death, through the changed lives resulting from my faithful obedience to God’s call on my life.  This is also true in our children, they are the living messages we send to a time that we will not see.  However, it is more than all that, for as you and I live for Christ, it does not stop when we die, we just carry on in eternity, we will serve Christ for all eternity and the more we serve now, the more we will serve then, the 5 and 10 cities beckon and we will be able to please him for all eternity!    God is no man’s debtor and the reward that we receive is far more disproportionate than what we can ever do for him.  We cannot serve him effectively unless we love him dearly, more than anything else, that’s the great commandment – love god with all our mind, heart, soul our whole being, and our neighbour as ourselves.  The New Testament adds our enemies into the equation, just for good measure!  Tall order?  Yes, but we can do it, at least when we utilise the new nature that we have been given, we certainly can’t do it ourselves!  We can be perfect as our heavenly father is, Matt 5;24.  We can - be holy as He is holy, 2Pet 1;4 – God never gives us unachievable goals!  In Christ we have everything and more than we need to live victorious Christian lives in churches that are ablaze with the love of Christ.

So, whenever we repent the Saviour will come in and make our lives over afresh and our churches revitalised, from the inside out.  Praise will be fresh and vital, gospel preaching will be passionate and people will respond.  Worshipful lives will be seen by all to God’s eternal glory as real fruit is evident.  Jesus will be the name on everyone’s lips in the community, as lives lived out to his glory radically impact all who come into contact with them.  I believe that the western church cannot go on much more like it’s current form, it must purge itself soon or God will purge it and that will be drastic.  Islam has purged the church twice before and are threatening again, they think they are the rightful world leaders and they are destabilising the whole world in an attempt to hasten the return of their ‘messiah’ like figure, the 12^th Imam, the mahdi.  Of course they cannot win because their main target is Israel, so they will be destroyed but they are likely cause much destruction and redraw the world map before they are beaten.  We need to review our lives, just what have we done for God, where is the fruit?  When stop avoiding the issues before us and we ask and answer questions like this honestly, then the Holy Spirit can work and bring us to repentance and sanctification and fit us through the filling of the Holy Spirit for effective service that will impact our communities.

Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don't drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. 1Cor 13;5.

If we do pass the test then we will be able to have an impact like the 3 friends in that city suburb.  We can be the salt and light that the Risen Christ desires of us and he will be pleased to call us His Friends and let us in on even greater things.  Then one day, we will stand at the Bema and see his delight as he says – well done, come and enjoy me!  When we enjoy Christ here and now, then we will enjoy him all the more in the glory of eternity.