About Me

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I am married to the wonderful Michelle Karr. We have been blessed with eight children; Josiah, Katie Jo, Eli, Janie Beth (who was born December 29, 2009 and went home to be with the Lord December 30, 2009), Joy Michelle, Timothy, Joshua and Jeremiah. My passion is writing books and study materials about, and teaching people how, to live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Friday

One Element Of Church Decline

As I was preparing to write my first blog post for this new ministry I was confounded as to what to say.  There are so many directions I could go: the call to vocational evangelism, to key element to spiritual renewal, and so forth.  Yet there was one topic that keeps pressing in on my thoughts, and it is a realization that I had just yesterday.  Let me try to explain.

I have watched and observed churches for nearly three decades of ministry.  One thing I have noted is that many churches seem to be in a state of decline: be it in actual attendance, spiritual growth, or the number of people coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  And I had to ask myself - why?  There are so many reasons that church growth experts have studied, that it would take volumes of blog posts to even touch the tip of the iceberg.  Yet, in the research I have read one element of church decline has never been mentioned.  Quite frankly, we as a church have ignored something that Christ Himself ordained as a part of His plan for His bride, the Church.  And if we are going to ignore or look past something He designed, then why should He bless our efforts at kingdom building?  In Ephesians 4:11-12 we read these words:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ....

I would like to point out a couple of obvious things from this passage at the outset.  First, did you notice that the Holy Spirit is not given credit for these particular gifts?  This is the one time in the New Testament that we are told that Jesus Himself gave this particular gift set.  I have come to call these gifts the "Gospel Gifts."  Each of these gifts have one central element in common; they were designed to make the gospel of Jesus Christ alive and relevant to His people. (Now the following is a very shortened version of a five session seminar I teach on the Spiritual gifts.) The Apostle was the ambassador for Christ, charged by Him to spread His message.  It was the Apostles that Christ used to pen the inspired Words of God.  Second, you have the Prophets.  These are the men that Jesus especially gifts with the call to take the words of God and speak forth His mind and counsel with power, conviction and inspiration. Third are the Evangelists, called by Christ to share the gospel in that powerful way, bringing people to the point of response to God's call of salvation.  Fourth are the Pastors, His shepherds in the daily living out of the gospel's call.  And fifth, the Teachers, who enable the believer to apply the gospel principles to daily living.  It has to be understood that each of these gospel gifts was given for a specific reason...to equip God's people for ministry.  And it is not until God's people are equipped and involved in ministry that we will experience true growth, edification and unity in the church.

Yet, in these verses there is an element that never really stood out to me until recently.  It is hard for me to imagine that the Lord (with the exception of the unique role of the apostle as God's bridge from the earthly ministry of Christ to the age of the church)  would give a gift He did not intend to be used in the church.  Still, we do this very thing regularly.  Let me try to help you understand what I mean.

In the modern church...how often do we have times of focused effort at revival and renewal?  Once a year?  Twice a year?  Once ever few years?  And then, what do we do?  We schedule a "one-day" revival and tell God, "ok, we have given You this special day...do Your stuff."  And to make matters worse, we will call some Pastor friend to come help us out, if his schedule will allow.  And then be amazed that there was not some great out-pouring of God's blessings.  Hear me loud and clear.  God gave the church the Prophet and Evangelist for a reason.  Could it be, and I may be totally wrong here, that we have boxed in God and said we will allow Him to revive our church, but we do not want to go to the hassle of finding a reputable Prophet/Evangelist of God, it is so much easier to have a Pastor pal do it for us.  Or, our church is busy and our people are busy, so we will try to fit time into our hectic schedule to "allow" God to get us focused on revival and renewal.

When the church takes seriously that God has a special purpose in mind for setting aside these gifted men for this vital calling, then I believe we will begin to see God do amazing things again in our midst.  Naturally the are always other factors that must be involved for true revival to break out in the church.  I will be blogging about these in the days to come.  But I begin with this point because it is dear to my heart.  We need to pray that God will raise up men who will be His prophets and evangelists for our time.  And while we are at it, pray that our Pastors will have the boldness and conviction to trust God's plan and utilize the Prophets and Evangelists that are there to be a part of the equipping of the church for God's glory.

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