I wrote a post about a week ago about how children were leading worship at our church. The next Sunday, Pastor James recapped on this and even added in some extra information about a healing.

The song has ended. The intensity of the electric guitar and the crashing cymbals has passed and I am now lying on the floor, listening to a soothing A2 chord being picked by Vicki on her acoustic guitar.

Other than the guitar, the church is silent, when all of the sudden:

MOOOOO
BAAAAAA
COCKADOODLEDOO
OINK
Repeat x4

20-30 seconds later (which felt much longer), there is silence in the church as everyone decides what they will do with the strangest ringtone they have ever heard. Do they laugh or do the play church and pretend it never happened?

The church breaks out in holy laughter, cracking up for endless minutes about what had happened. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard holy laughter, but it’s really the best kind.

People start cracking up and when they finally regain composure, they lose it again. And it was infectious. Pretty soon some of the strangest laughs you’ve ever heard are coming out of some people.

It made me realize that some of the times where I couldn’t stop laughing in my past were during prayer at churches. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about! You feel like you’re going to explode while someone’s praying because of something that happened and everyone is glaring at you.

Just laugh. It’s good medicine.

And for whatever reason, the Spirit provokes people to do so, so it must be good ;)

Forgive my grammar and typos. This was written in my itouch and I’m too lazy to proofread ;)

Ministry from my perspective is a very broad occupation to work in because it constantly expands as it reaches out to Christians and unbelievers alike, in attempts to bring them closer to God. However, despite the complexity that ministry can become, when it comes down to it is simply defined best in 4 letters: L-O-V-E. Just as it is the most important commandment to love God and our neighbors, so it is most important to having a successful and righteous ministry. After all, a ministry without love is not really a ministry at all. A ministry without love is no more than a resounding cymbal. For this reason, ministry, from my perspective, flows out of love.

This idea of ministry being love comes straight out of the example Jesus set as for His ministry. He spent much of His ministry loving on others in many different ways, even at the risk of His own well-being at times. Whether He was giving someone a healing or performing an exorcism, He was doing so as an act of love. It was His most important rule and He lived by it better than anyone else ever has or ever will.

Over the past several years I have made a long journey to figure out what exactly God was hoping to do with me, and while I had always expected my role in this world to take place somewhere in ministry, I did not entirely expect to find it in pastoral ministry. But God has rekindled an old flame in me and given me a passion for a ministerial position as a senior pastor. Therefore, I do ministry for God because I have felt a call towards such a position.

But if I were to narrow down the passions He has given me in regards to ministry, I would have to say that I have an overwhelming desire to teach people. Such a job is essential to any ministry and connects to the love theme that ministry is based around. For it is my hope that through my teachings I would be able to bring people into a deeper and more meaningful love relationship with God and that out of such a relationship, people’s love for one another would flourish.

God has also put a desire on my heart to reach my fellow Free Methodists and others with the truth of charismatic gifts. I believe them to be real today and I hope to help others be able to experience God and His Spirit in this way. And once again, this connects to love because the Spirit is meant to help us edify one another, which is something that the church desperately needs today. I hope to break the message of condemnation that satan has taught many of us today and instead present a loving God to His people whom they can be close to. So although my greatest perspective in my own ministry may happen to be teaching, God has also given me some specific burdens to bear in reaching His people. These are part of the reason I feel called to do so.

However, ministry is not simply done through myself, but through the church. There needs to be a new emphasis on the church community because many Christians view ministry to be the hierarchy of the building they meet in. This could not be further from the truth. Granted, my job is described as ministry, every Christian’s God-given directive is to live a life of ministry. Therefore, ministry is not simply music and a message, but believers reaching each other and outsiders. Until the church comes to see this, they should not expect to get much more than mere entertainment from their church services, which, in all honesty, was never the intention or focus of church.

Now obviously, if I am going to go into ministry, I need to know how to take care of myself. After all, if I cannot take care of my own self, how should I be expected to take care of others? The first thing I know that I need to do to be a successful pastor is to find an accountability partner or partners whom I can trust and confide in. Christians were never meant to go the road alone, and especially the pastors of all people! Finding someone trustworthy is incredibly important for a couple reasons.

First off, I need to have someone who is willing to tell me the truth, do so. It is not good to always rely on my own feelings and expectations. Hopefully by having someone else share in my life and struggles, they will be able to give me the cold, hard, and honest truth. Secondly, I need this person to be willing to keep secrets and support me. If they are not good at this, it could become very easy for my inner most problems to be put on display for the rest of the church to see and I could lose my influence and other’s respect.

I also need to begin to train my mind now to keep my family at the top of priorities in my life. I already realize that there is a great possibility to struggle with putting church above my family, because it seems almost wrong to say that I cannot do something in church for God because there are other priorities I have. Now obviously God would view my future family as highly important and I do not believe He would want me to be tricked into thinking that I cannot make time for them over church. For this reason, I would like to make sure that my hours at the church office were balanced well enough to lead a healthy family life and it also might be a good idea to find ways to work at home as I do not think I necessarily have to be at church to get stuff done.

From my perspective I also see a great need to do ministry in a modern light rather than a traditional. That is not to say that there would be no tradition in my ministry, but rather that my services would be set up in a way that I feel can appeal to today’s and future generations. I have critically assessed many of the liturgical ways of doing church and I do not feel that God has convicted me to run such a service. Instead, I feel that He has given me the freedom to select for myself how I would run a service, mostly by means of reason. In other words, logically and strategically I feel that the modern way of doing church in my case would reach a greater audience and pull them into God’s love.

While I do not plan to run my church as a solo pastor, I do recognize that my job as a senior pastor can branch out into many different areas, as I will have to be flexible to work with others. For instance, my teaching skills may correlate more directly to an individual by means of counseling. Or perhaps I will have to lead or help with the worship music incase there is not another to take the position. I also need to be a skilled leader and a dedicated follower. I will have to direct weddings, lead funerals, and appropriately integrate tradition into a modern setting. I may have to dumb myself down to think like others or in some cases challenge myself to someone else’s position. I may even have to coordinate business meetings and concern myself with church finances.

Altogether, a pastor is quite a hat juggler. While it would be nice at times for me to simply grab the hat of teaching and walk out on stage to give a lesson, I need to realize that God has put me in a position where there is much more I will have to do. Perhaps this is why ministry is a calling and not a stereotypical job that anyone can do. Perhaps God realizes that a minister needs to be good at multi-tasking both in his faith and his home life.

However it is that one might define ministry, my definition and mission statement is really quite simple. Ministry is love. And love is my perspective. Outside of love, there is no such thing as ministry. Outside of love all we have is religion. Real ministry comes when lives are changing due to a deeper and more intimate love for God and others around them. I need to realize what this implies for myself as well. If ministry is love than I, as a minister, must be a lover.

There’s lots of things we can say about Paul’s ministry but here’s what you can gather from 1 Corinthians:1-6.

In reading 1 Corinthians 1-6, there are several different ideas we can pick up on as to how Paul does ministry. It is obvious that there is much more involved in ministry than simply leading people to Christ. In fact, leading people to Christ is just the beginning of ministry, which we can see through these chapters since much of what Paul writes to the Corinthians has to do with those who have already been saved.

Paul starts off Corinthians by affirming the fact that his role in ministry was a calling on his life by the will of God. This is quite important to note as it does show that God does call people to minister in certain areas and that we should be careful whom we affirm into such positions. If it was not God’s plan to have that person in ministry, the body (and the minister) may endure quite a struggle.

The apostle does get a bit charismatic in chapter two as he begins to emphasize the power of the Spirit. Paul shows how much he relies on this and speaks to the other Christians about how they need to do the same. Sure, we may look wacky to those who aren’t Christians, as they do not have the same Spirit, but nonetheless, the Spirit is what the church needs to look like. Christians and ministry needs to move in the power of the Spirit rather than in the wisdom of man. Not only does the power of God give us true wisdom, but it also gives us true understanding of the mysteries of God. All of this is essential to ministry.

Paul also highlights different areas of ministry in 1 Corinthians 3:6 when he says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.” While there is obviously a divine side to our Christianity, Paul points out the fact that there is also planting and watering. Paul had introduced people to Christ, Apollos had fed them and given them what they needed, and God was turning them into their full potential. If ministry doesn’t have planters and feeders, we leave these things up to God to do, which for whatever reason He has designated such things to be done by us. Without planting and feeding, there is no growth. Paul also seems to recognize that depending on the growth we have, we may need to be ministered to on a different level. Rather than give a baby solid food, sometimes in ministry we need to start off by giving them milk until they’re ready for something more.

The Corinthian church also had quite a bit of sin that needed to be pointed out to them and Paul makes it obvious that this is a part of ministry. This is quite a major theme throughout the book and these first six chapters. Within the first chapter he is already going at it, correcting people for having made their savior someone other than Jesus. In chapter five he goes on to rebuke immorality in the church as any immorality will influence the rest of the church. If they don’t repent they will affect others around them and bring them down with them. This is sometimes the hardest part of ministry, but Paul makes it effectively noticed that sometimes we deal with our sinners and do so harshly if need be.

Ministry means teaching your people to “flee immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18). It means watching over your flock and correcting their wrongs, disciplining them to be better. Christians are to have nothing to do with a brother who lives in sin as they can be easily affected. Christians are, however, to have something to do with outsiders who are immoral. These are the people who need to be reached and Paul makes that a point. Ministry is reaching out to the broken, the sinful, and the immoral. They are just not to allow such things inside their faith.

And to wrap up ministry, Paul paints a picture of what life looks inside of his own particular job. The apostles are fools for Christ’s sake, prudent in Christ, weak, without honor, hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless, work with their hands, reviled, forced to endure, slandered, and have become the scum of the world, the dregs of all things (1 Cor. 4:10-13.) This is what Paul’s life in ministry looks like. And while we may not always end up living exactly the same way as Christians in our particular ministries, we should by all means expect that any of these characteristics to define our lives. Because this is what the life of ministry looks like at full passion. This is how a man, fully influenced by the Spirit, may come to look like.

Sometimes it seems as though it is our ecclesiology that splits us into different denominations and separates churches. Whether it is our idea as to what is musically appropriate, how often we should take communion, or what form of church government rules above us, all of these things and more are certain to create problems between believers. Yet, it seems at many times that everyone is right, whether they are extremely for one side of the argument, or very much against it. It is my opinion that there is a middle ground to many of these debates that is often times overlooked, and it is there in the middle ground that the Spirit has full potential to move and therefore, the form of ecclesiology that I wish churches to adopt, and the form that I find myself in favor of is that of a Spirit-led service with structure.

Having a Spirit-led church with structure is obviously not a new idea. There are plenty of churches doing so right now. But if we take a look at the past and the New Testament church, we find that one of the only Scriptures explaining how we should “do church” has a similar ecclesiology. In 1 Corinthians 14:20-40, Paul lays out an ecclesiology full of structure that includes the Spirit. His idea of order in the church is as follows: listen to a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, and an interpretation. So yes, Paul has a structure. But Paul is also capable of giving the Spirit space within that structure. Not only do they have time in their service to speak in tongues (a gift from the Spirit) and share revelations from the Spirit, but in the same passage, they are also told to prophesy. The way Paul “does church” is neither evangelical nor orthodox, yet churches today have only adapted pieces of this Biblical account into their structures.

Now there are other avenues outside of the ones that Paul laid out that our churches have found important to be included, such as music. Now music isn’t expressly noted in Paul’s structure but we find it important today. And on top of that, there is a possibility that the psalms they shared in the New Testament churches were sung since they are, after all, psalms. Today, worship music is one of the areas that many churches tend to cut the Spirit out of. At the extremity of evangelicalism, we find that the worship songs may be timed out to end at an exact second in order to stay on a very strict and rigid schedule. On the other side of the spectrum, however, churches may worship up to four hours, leaving plenty of room for the Spirit to do what He feels fit. The only thing wrong with worshipping for four hours is that you may never get a chance to get to some of the other basics of church.

But when it comes down to it, there is nothing seriously wrong with such an extension of time allotted for worship. There is, however, something wrong with cutting the Spirit out of worship completely. Worship through the avenue of music needs to be understood as important as it is one of the most universal ways to give praise. Realize that the debate here is not on the genre of music a church plays, but the space left for the Spirit to move through it.

One of the things that evangelicals are obsessed with in today’s age is making their churches relevant and cool to the society that we live in. There are also, as you might have guessed, churches that could care less. The Eastern Orthodox Church is obviously one of these churches as they are incredibly ingrained in a very ancient form of tradition and claim that their way of doing church is the only right way. Once again, it seems to me that the Spirit moves best somewhere between these opposing viewpoints. It does not matter to Him what millennium it is, as He exists and moves regardless. It is obvious that He is moving in some very modern churches, just as He is in those that are very traditional. But I would again suggest that He is given the most freedom to do His work in between the arguments. In this particular case, I believe it is easier for Him to reach out to unbelievers when the doors of a church do not present him or her with culture shock.

Paul had a concern about the church reaching the unsaved. He believed that the churches of his time could reach unbelievers through the gifting of the Spirit. He points out in 1 Corinthians 14:24 that through prophecy, God made Himself real to the unbeliever. Now first off, churches would have to start teaching and practicing prophecy in order to show an unbeliever God in such a way. But in order to get an unbeliever into a church in the first place, it doesn’t hurt to have a church that can minister to the era they live in. This takes us back to the issue of music, as it is really one of the biggest tone setters for a church. While it may have its flaws, contemporary and modern music is where my heart lies and I feel that it has a max potential to reach unbelievers. But that is an argument we will not get into right now.

While making the church an environment for unbelievers to come to is good and all, that does not mean that we need to dumb down every fabric of her being. Doing such a thing actually gives the Spirit less room to move (if any at all). More specifically, I speak about the messages preached every Sunday. The church is hungering for a deeper, more intimate understanding of God and His Scriptures and the Spirit is longing to give it to her. But some of the messages pastors preach today are so watered down that the Holy Spirit has a hard time trying to find a serious (or at least a new) application to give to the body.

I believe that is why churches like Rob Bell’s in Michigan and Francis Chan’s in California are flourishing. Bell delivers some of the most in depth and well rehearsed messages you will ever hear and people show up because they love to hear it. Chan, on the other hand, delivers messages that may not be quite as deep, but are so real to the listener that he or she cannot leave untouched by the Spirit. The pastor of a church is not meant to be a businessman. He or she should actually spend time with the Spirit to find out how He wants to move. Revelations are important to knowledge and message-giving and the passing on of that knowledge is important to growing in God.

And then there is still the subject of Sacraments, some of which were commanded by Jesus Himself. Obviously we need to look at these as important, which the traditional churches have done much better at than the modern, even though both have an extreme side to them. Communion, for example, is basically dead in evangelical churches and has the potential to be dead to those that are more orthodox. When a church does not practice Eucharist rarely or at all, they are really leaving out an important practice of Jesus’. But when a church practices it all too much, the very reason for its existence can be lost in Christian legalism. My current idea is to have communion once or twice a month, but practice it more regularly in other venues such as small groups. I would also perhaps have a day each week where a communion service takes place for anyone who would like to come. That way the Spirit has a chance to make communion real to people in the right dose for their particular understanding.

When it comes to the sacrament of baptism, my approach is much like that of the Free Methodists. Dedication as a child is appropriate, but baptism should be approached as an adult. Therefore the Spirit has led a person to claim baptism for his or herself rather than have a fellow Christian claim it for them. This is meant to be a serious moment in one’s life and it should be undergone at an age of understanding and by the work of the Spirit within them.

When it comes down to it, I can definitely identify my ecclesiology as Spirit-led and structured. The problem with many churches is that they are either too hot or too cold on an argument when many times, the Spirit seems to be sitting in the middle of the debate whispering, “It’s balance.” Too often we support our debates by closing doors. We think that the best way to believe is to set our minds on something and never ever change it. Sometimes Jesus Himself could come knocking with the answer and we could completely lock Him out!

The truth is that the Spirit works in many ways. Through the traditional and the modern; the Orthodox and the Evangelical. By restricting Him, we are hurting the body. He may not always need to lash out in an all out charismatic fest. Maybe He just wants to whisper something. But it is in the balance of the structures that perhaps we find the most efficient service. Mix that with the Spirit and that church comes alive. However we decide to run our churches, we must realize that “all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner” (1 Corinthians 14:40).

Now I’m not one to get much into government and politics and whatnot, but it was kind of interesting how this ended up working out. I was doing some homework on Romans 13 while watching Stargate SG-1 and somehow the two things connected together very well. See, Romans 13:1-8 is about government. It’s short so take a quick read:

¹Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.

²Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

³For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;

⁴for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

⁵Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.

⁶For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

⁷Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

⁸Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Now don’t take this chapter out of context like so many people do. As you might notice from verses 1 and 2, governments are established by God. So some of you are wondering well then what about Hitler and rulers like him? Well that’s exactly how it gets taken out of context. The real idea behind Paul’s reasoning is found in verse 3 and 4. God is good and just and that is what the government is supposed to be as well and so it find’s itself under God’s establishment. After all, if governments weren’t keeping things good and just it would hardly be much of a government now would it?

You can see areas of uprising when governments go bad and don’t promote goodness and justice.

Rack, Shack, and Benny in the fiery furnace.
Daniel in the lion’s den.

So Paul sees it good for us to have government. It holds us back from sin while we’re here on earth. And on top of that, it’s good for our conscience as noted in verse 5. It allows us to get a burden all sorted out. Not that that means we enjoy it.

But as I was reading this I was watching this particular episode of Stargate SG-1 where Tea’lc (a man who used to be on the team with the bad dudes) went to a different planet and met the son of a man he killed long ago. Now since Tea’lc joined the team with the good dudes, he has done much good in the world, yet he was willing to play by the rules of the government on this new planet and face trial for the man he had killed. The person doing the judging was the dead man’s son.

Now ever-so-faithful Tea’lc faces the trial knowing fair well that it could end in death and even though he could escape, he waits for his judgment, seeming to hope to clear his conscience in the meantime. Even though he is now one of the most loyal and good”est” people you could ever meet, he allows the government to make atonement for his sin.

*And now for the spoilers. So don’t read ahead if you’d rather watch it for yourself.*

It ends up that Tea’lc’s testimony is really, really good. But regardless, his accuser sentences him to death and Tea’lcaccepts it. In the end he is forgiven because his accuser finally realizes that he is not the same man. Tea’lc tells the man he is and that he did kill his father, but the accuser tells him that he has changed and is no longer that man. Tea’lc is forgiven and you can imagine how good that was for his conscience.

Yeah, weird parallels. If you got some time, give the episode a watch yourself and see if you see the same things.

Children leading worship eh?

Not even joking. This morning I watched tiny little tykes lead worship.

God has been doing a lot at the church I’ve been helping out with lately and they are ready to take their city for Jesus. But in order to do that, God has to first take them. And today He did so, by empowering two children to lead the worship.

Here we are, playing music when these two children, a girl and a boy, out of nowhere start running around the front of the room. They continue running back and forth and the next thing I know, they’re holding flags and praising God by running around and waving them. And then after our first song stops they start yelling at the top of their lungs “JESUS!!!”

They were completely unashamed of what they were doing and continued screaming His name as everyone else joined in. Then the next thing I know they’re running around with tambourines! Then the next thing I know people are lying on the ground before God and these kids are covering them with prayer blankets. I might have even saw a kid stick his hand out and pray for one of them.

In my 21 years of living, I have never worshipped like these kids. And it became clear to me that something supernatural was going on in that room. God was breaking through and He was doing it through the kids and these kids gave praise to God in every form. And it was so evident that it was God because it just made sense with my Spirit. I knew there was something bigger going on here.

And later this was confirmed when someone grabbed a mic to talk about what she had seen. God had opened her eyes to the supernatural and she actually saw an angel with these kids, who was empowering and compelling them to worship in the way they did.

WOW.

You know, maybe there’s angels around us all the time doing their thing, but in this moment I had recognized in thought and hearing that something was going on, and now I see that we’re standing with the angels praising God.

That seriously makes me speechless.

I almost don’t even want to continue because that’ so awesome to me, but so much happened this morning that I need to write it down.

God ministered to my specific needs this morning as well. Through song and through speech. He seriously just hit me and made sure I got the point. All of the songs really spoke to me about God’s love for me despite my sin. And then someone got up and talked about how she and others have had an “orphan spirit” in their lives. This spirit condemns and make people feel as though they would never live up to God and so on and so forth. Exactly the stuff that has been burdening the crap out of me as of late. So I prayed to be released from this orphan spirit and all the hair on my body raised up.

She told us all that we were God’s children and to get rid of that spirit and instead, allow the spirit of adoption into our lives. For we are adopted into God’s family and He loves us and we are supposed to live like that, not in condemnation.

And now, for all the other weird stuff:

There was prophecy about kids, ages 4-14 being key to what God is doing. That was evident this morning and prophesied before hand.

There is alo prophecy about college campuses getting ready to be unleashed. That is defintely something I hope to be a part of. I still got a year here at SAU, anyone care to join me?

Vicki, our band leader, answered prophecy by choosing songs that directly correlated to other prophecies, themes, and thoughts put on people’s hearts. And when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, she is plugged into what God is doing as are the other people, and because of that, there is unity between propechy and the answers that come to them. It only makes sense that if they are listening to God, there would be unity.

The pastor prayed for sickness and a lady was healed after having been to the hospital twice in the past week.

Someone else had a vision of our worship moving up to Heaven where an angel turned it into fireballs and threw them at strategic places where God would take over. This included city hall in Jackson I believe. I now would like to name a band “The Strategic Fireball Angels.” :P

We were standing under an open heaven this morning. I finally understand what that means for once. It means stuff happens. It means it happens because Heaven is over us and is being released. God was taking the church and it was evident by how many people continually grabbed the mic and shared a prophecy, vision, story, healing, or other various stories.

Also, the churches I’ve been to don’t usually spend 2 to 2 and a half hours worshipping and waiting for God to show up. But as they wait on the Lord, He comes.

There was some kind of word or prophecy spoken over our worship band about us going much further or something or other. That in itself must be a God thing, because this band was randomly put together to play one worship event at the church, and we’ve been there ever since, leading worship twice a week. Not what I had expected to happen, but incredibly glad it did.

Needless to  say, I am excited about the future.

As I thought of whom I could contact about their ministries, I had two people come to mind. The first was a man named Chad who is now the youth pastor at one of my former churches. When I was still there, Brian Kono was my youth pastor and so I was curious if I could find out if the ministry and vision of the youth group had changed since Kono and I had moved from that area. The other man I attempted to contact is the author of the book, When Pigs Move In, and his name is Don Dickerman. Both this book and his ministry (Don Dickerman Ministries) are focused on delivering people from demonic oppression. While I was unable to get a hold of Don himself, the representative who answered the phone gave me a few answers to my questions.

In talking with Chad about his youth ministry, I came to find that the overall vision of the church had not really changed too drastically. In fact, they had taken Kono’s old logo and adapted it to the rest of the church. The logo consists of four arrows circling around to point to the middle of the circle it made. There are five things this logo stands for which Chad shared with me in my interview. These five things include honoring Christ with our lives, sharing Him, connecting to the church, growing in Him, and serving Him by serving others. The overall goal and vision of this church was to see people’s lives changed in Christ and these five areas were a way of measuring that.

Chad’s biggest challenge was to “help kids understand the relevance of Christ in their lives and why He’s important.” He went on to mention that “A lot of kids today like to try and experience different things and Christ is so traditional and old to them that it’s hard for them to figure out if He is something they want.” This voiced one of the big challenges that Kono and the rest of his youth leadership group (which I was a part of) had as well.

While we were fairly successful at creating an atmosphere for the youth group to grow, it was sometimes a challenge to find new ways to keep people’s attention. On top that, this challenge has reigned even truer in the other ministries I have been a part of, as it seems that the older the people we minister to, the less creative we are. In relation to this challenge, Chad also mentioned that “It’s also hard to find modern models today that apply to today’s generation of teenagers as opposed to those in the past.”

It sounded like the biggest joy for Chad in his ministry was “Being able to see kids making good decisions and accepting Christ for the first time.” Outside of that he mentioned that he also enjoyed seeing them “willing to sacrifice themselves instead of choosing something selfish.” Overall, these are the same kind of joys I get in the music ministry I was working in for several years. In fact, one of my biggest hardships for me was not being able to take part in these joys. When people did not seem to be affected by my ministry or did not respond, I would have a hard time coping with it. But when people are making good decisions, accepting Christ, and sacrificing themselves for the sake of others, everything feels much better.

The other ministry I interviewed is quite a different ministry that can be hard to find in today’s day and age. It appears that in Don Dickerman’s book, he basically travels wherever deliverance is needed. If someone believes they are suffering from demonic oppression, he makes a trip there to deliver them. He also has done prison ministry for quite awhile and delivered people such as “The Son of Sam” who is now a Christian. And so it appears that his prison ministry and deliverance ministry collide in many ways.

The representative at Don Dickerman ministries was fairly quick and to the point and informed me that the vision of their ministry is basically to “Make sure God’s people get set free” from demonic oppression. This statement reigns true in relation to Dickerman’s book as he makes quite a journey at times to relieve people from satan’s wrath. And on top of that, he has helped people “get free” by educating them on the demonic and how to do deliverances themselves. His website is also full of other sources on how to operate in the power of God.

While it wasn’t elaborated on too much, it appears that “People being ready for ministry” is the biggest challenge of this ministry. I can see this being true in the ministries I’ve been a part of as well. For example, my old church had to set up for 1-2 hours every Sunday morning inside of a school and for nearly 3 years, mostly the same people were stuck doing all of the work. Finding people who will take the time to work in ministry can be very difficult. I imagine that it would be even more difficult for a ministry like Don’s as they have to find people who are willing to be trained to fight off demons and many people who are uneducated about them fear learning about it.

Finally, the biggest joy that Don Dickerman ministries would get is from seeing someone set free from demonic oppression, which must be incredibly powerful. This joy can spread to everyone who knew the person, as they will see that Jesus has liberated him or her. The same person who struggled with sex or drugs or depression is now happy and has a burning desire for God. Not only does it minister to the Christians around him or her, but it can also minister to any unbelieving friend who saw the exorcism and the difference before and after.

While these ministries had plenty of hope to offer me, they also voiced some of the concerns from my past. But, having worked in churches for many years now, I feel fairly confident that I know what I am getting into. I do not expect church to run smoothly and easily because I know that I have to deal with people of all sorts, which means that there will be struggles here and there. But then again, the church has always been a family and we all know fairly well how dysfunctional we can be. And so I try to emphasize hope in my future while recognizing that there will be difficulty as well.

Questions for Youth Pastor Chad of Westland Free Methodist Church

1.What is the vision/mission of this minister or ministry?

Essentially it is to see people’s lives changed through Christ in five ways. Honoring Christ through our lives, sharing Him, connecting to the church, growing in Him, serving Him in others.

2.What are the biggest challenges or needs that this minister or ministry faces?

Right now the biggest challenge is to help kids understand the relevance of Christ in their lives and why He’s important. A lot of kids today like to try and experience different things and Christ is so traditional and old to them that it’s hard for them to figure out if He is something they want. It’s also hard to find modern models today that apply to today’s generation of teenagers opposed to the past.

3. What are the greatest rewards/joys associated with this ministry?

Being able to see kids making good decisions and accepting Christ for the first time especially. Also when they are willing to sacrifice themselves instead of choosing something selfish.

Questions for Ministry Representative of Don Dickerman Deliverance Ministries

1.What is the vision/mission of this minister or ministry?

Make sure God’s people get set free from demonic oppression.

2. What are the biggest challenges or needs that this minister or ministry faces?

People being ready for ministry.

3. What are the greatest rewards/joys associated with this ministry?

Watching someone walk out free.

There are two basic views when it comes to the charismatic gifts debate. One of these views is the cessationist view, which basically claims that charismatic gifts such as prophecy, speaking in tongues, and healing among other things ceased to happen after the New Testament. On the opposite side of the spectrum there is the continuationist view, which claims that such gifts have continued all the way until today and that Christians are still able to perform such gifts in their lives. Using Scripture and experience, it has become more than obvious to me that the continuationist view is the correct view to take on this subject.

It is seen throughout the entire Bible that when the Holy Spirit shows up, gifts, as well as signs and wonders, come with Him on regular occasions. Numbers 11 is proof of this. In this story, Moses gathers most of the seventy elders of Israel around the tent of the tabernacle where the Holy Spirit showed up. Verse 25 says, “Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him; and He took of the Spirit who was upon him and placed Him upon the seventy elders. And when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do it again.” It is important to note that this does not mean that Christian prophecy will end. This particular moment of prophecy was different which The Bible Knowledge Commentary points out well. “All that was necessary was for their ministry to be publicly authenticated so the whole community could see that they possessed the same spiritual qualifications and authority as Moses himself.”

The Holy Spirit dates back all the way to the story of creation and it is obvious that He dwells in Christ in the New Testament (as shown through His gifts, miracles, and signs and wonders). We as Christians believe fully that Christ made the Spirit available to everyone who believes in Him so we should expect the Spirit to live as He always has. The Spirit was going to be so helpful that it would actually be more of an advantage that Jesus left so the Spirit could come as stated in John 16:7. The Willmington’s Bible Handbook points out that, “This does not mean that the Holy Spirit had no ministry in the world up to that time but that his ministry would now expand and intensify.” So if Christ is giving us the same Spirit He has, we should expect that this meant the Spirit was capable of doing and being much more than a super-conscience (as many cessationists have made Him out to be). And it is evidenced in Acts 2 that He does do much more since as soon as He enters Christians for the first time, they start speaking in tongues.

Jesus has become the avenue in which we receive the Spirit and He expects to see the outpouring of great works because of it. In John 14:12 He says “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” This is not a small statement to make as the very last verse of John states that “there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” These verses are evidence that Christians are expected to do things even beyond what Jesus did. Matthew Henry’s Commentary made a great point on this subject. “In the kingdom of nature they should work greater miracles. No miracle is little, but some to our apprehension seem greater than others. Christ had healed with the hem of his garment, but Peter with his shadow, Paul by the handkerchief that had touched him.” Obviously Christians cannot do these things by themselves, but they need the Holy Spirit to do so.

My experience has made all of these verses real to me. It is one thing to say the Spirit is capable of doing these things, but it is a completely different thing to actually see it happen. For most of my life I was grown as a cessationist and I did not question it because I had yet to see the Spirit do anything. But after catching people slain in the Spirit, seeing healings happen, hearing tongues spoken, and hearing story after story of what the Spirit is doing, I cannot ignore that there are charismatic gifts today. For this reason, it is my opinion that the cessationist view has become a view of arrogance rather than an educated outlook on the Holy Spirit, because I am obviously seeing Him at work around me through charismatic gifts.

Because of my experience, I have no objection whatsoever to the continuationist view, and see all of the cessationist arguments as incredibly weak. Therefore, the only objection to charismatic gifts today that I can see, is really more of a question than an argument: How can we know that it is God doing these things today and not the perceptions of our own emotions or demonic forces?

There are several ways to answer this question, one of the first being that Christians need to learn how to discern what is and is not from God, and do so with other Christians. We can also look at the fruit of the situation to see if God was really present in what happened. But I think the best way to find out is for one to experience it himself. When a person sees someone healed (or perhaps is the person being healed) it will become much more obvious that God still does these things. Or if someone is prophesied over they just might fall to their face and worship God, declaring that God is there (1 Cor. 14:25). Most of the charismatic gifts that Christians practice are Biblical and until a cessationist tries to experience it, they will have a hard time understanding or believing it, which is not only their loss, but also the Holy Spirit’s.

Bibliography

Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (1:227). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Willmington, H. L. (1997). Willmington’s Bible handbook (619). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Henry, M. (1996, c1991). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume (Jn 14:12). Peabody: Hendrickson.

There are two basic sides to the women in ministry debate. Both sides acknowledge the fact that both male and female are made in the image of God and that Christians have the Holy Spirit. Both views also acknowledge that men and women are equal, but the two views have a different aspect when it comes to what women are allowed to do spiritually. The complementarian view basically states that while women are equal, the roles that they play in life are not the same as men. Instead, they have complementing roles to those that men have. The other view is know as the egalitarian view and it is the understanding that it does not matter if one is male or female, because they still have the same spiritual authority regardless. Personally, I have come to find that the egalitarian view to make more sense biblically and reasonably.

In browsing through the Old Testament, one can come to find that there are a few spots where prophetesses are mentioned (Ex. 15:20; Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14). This fact alone discredits the complementarian view pretty strongly. The fact that these women are prophetesses is something that really needs to be reflected on, especially since these passages are from the Old Testament. This means that at this point everyone does not have the Holy Spirit and since prophecy is a gift of the Spirit, it means that God Himself specifically anointed these women out of all Israel to be his ministers. While prophecy may not be a pastoral position, in some senses it is actually quite higher. It includes caring for and teaching people, but it is done more so through the mouth of God rather than the mouth of human.

And if you want to take this point to the next level, then it is quite interesting to see that Deborah, the prophetess found in Judges 4, actually goes on to become one of the judges of Judges! This is quite a position to be put in and it seems quite obvious that God used her leadership to liberate Israel. And as a side note, it was Jael who, in the same chapter, ended up assassinating the leader of the opposing army. In general, Judges 4 seems to be trying to say something about women doing great and powerful things that typically only leaders would do.

These are examples of women living outside of their own culture. Not that long ago, America itself was fighting for the rights of women. With this being true, imagine what the culture for women must have been like in the Old Testament. All of this is summed up quite well in the Bible Reader’s Companion. “Women are equal to men in ability, and gifted individuals should be encouraged to use their abilities within, and at times outside of, culturally defined expectations.”

Moving into New Testamental themes, we now realize that all believers have the Holy Spirit. If this is so, then we also recognize that there are many chances for women to become prophetesses and teachers among other things. Yet, for whatever reason the complementarian view seems to understand such ministerial gifts as being given to men alone. Or at the very least, they believe women can do whatever they want in ministry so long as they do not take a lead pastoral position in a church. I would have to disagree as one of the most important statements I ever heard made in regards to women in ministry came from Andy Stanley at a leadership conference. He was simple and straight about it and said something along the lines of, “Women, if God calls you to ministry, do it.”

The biggest case against women in ministry is found in Paul’s writings when he says that women should not teach or have authority over men (1 Tim. 2), or even speak in church for that matter (1 Cor. 14). Yet I believe that what Paul has said has been taken out of context. If it is read within the context of the culture at the time, it has a completely different understanding. But here we find that an absence of background work brings an absence of truth. It seems that the specific churches that Paul wrote this to simply needed correction just as other churches needed their own corrections. If the men were having a problem speaking in church do you think Paul would have let that slide?

There is also a good understanding as to why Paul said women should not teach, which also happens to be related to culture. During this time there were women from cults that involved prostitution and it would be bad for the entire faith if anyone made the wrong connection between Christianity and these cults. Women also may not have received as much education back then to be able to teach on it (hence the asking questions in 1 Corinthians 14:35), but today education is equal and culture has changed. So if we take these verses in their cultural context, it appears that today men and women have an equal chance to take on the pastoral role. But if we would rather live in that culture still, we might as well make sure our women still cover their heads while we are at it. However one wants to look at it, Willmington’s Bible Handbook makes a good point. “Paul’s teachings on the role of women in the church should be seen in light of his recognition of and respect for the spiritual gifts of women in his day (1 Cor. 14:26–40) and his proclamation of the equality of men and women in Christ (Gal. 3:26–4:7).”

Bibliography

Stanley, Andy. Proc. of Willow Creek Leadership Conference, South Barrington, IL.

Richards, L. O. (1991; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996).

The Bible readers companion (electronic ed.) (394). Wheaton: Victor Books.

Willmington, H. L. (1997). Willmington’s Bible handbook (734). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale

House Publishers.