That is not a 10k race…for those runner friends out there. I am writing of 10k as in 10,000, & the 1 is representative of 1 church.
We need 1 church for every 10,000 people, to be precise we need 1 church of 200 active members for every 10,000 people. This is the conclusion many have come to, including those in the North Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Why? Well let the folks at NPUC explain:
“A typical church of 200 active members will impact a maximum of 10k people (200 members x 50 contacts = 10k if there is no overlap).”
Now let me throw in this caveat that I believe to be absolutely 100% truth, and definitely verifiable through the stories of scripture. God could reach everyone with just 1 person. I don’t know how, but He could do it. And although that is true that is not the way God seems to work. In fact He seems to work in the way we would typically think of working, at least when it comes to numbers.
More people reach more people!
“The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” –Matthew 9:37-38
The idea is MORE laborers MORE reaping!
So yes God could reach everyone with just 1 person, but He has chosen to use people and to call for more people to help Him in reaching everyone. Which is the very reason why the statistic above is significant. For a church to truly impact 10,000 people it must have 200 soul winners, engaged members in its midst.
In most communities where there is an Adventist church of 500 or more folk will often ask, “Why do we need another church?” It doesn’t matter if the city is 20,000, 50,000, or 100,000+. A church of 500 or more is usually quite satisfactory to folk and again people ask, “Why do we need another church?” How do I know this? Because we have recently started another church (in my mind it is a campus, but to the community it is another church) The Ark a Seventh-day Adventist Christian Church, & because there is already a significant size church in our community, The Visalia Seventh-day Adventist Church, (740 members and growing) I have heard many times, “Why another church pastor?”
My answer is this:
Because 1 church cannot reach 125,000 people quick enough with the Adventist message (and yes I do believe in proselytizing) That is how many people there are in my city. Which would mean we need at least 12 churches of 200 soul winners to reach all 125,000+ people in our community.
What about in your community? How big is your city? Does your city have a population of 10,000 or more?
And if so…
Do you have an Adventist church? Are there 200 engaged–on fire, Jesus loving, people serving, Good News spreading–members in your church? Do you have enough churches & or enough members if your city is 20 thousand, 30 thousand, 40 thousand, 100,000, 500,000 people?
For most of you the answer will be NO!
How do I know? Because in the United States the mean size of a typical Adventist church is 215 members. That is good, except…there are only 4950 churches which in comparison to the population of the United States computes to just 1 church for every 63,267 people.
(Even if we took our total Adventist membership in the U.S. and divided it by 200 we would still only have 1 set of 200 people for every 58,900 people. Now probably wouldn’t be the right time to mention that only about half of all professed Adventists are “active” in their local churches right? Yeah that would be a much more dismal picture, so let’s at least let something be rose colored:)).
Back to our situation. In order to have 1 church for every 10k in the United States, we need 31,317 Adventist churches of at least 200 in the United States. So roughly, 26,350 more of our mean size (215) church.
So do we throw-up our hands and say impossible? Can’t be done? Do you remember that God that could reach everyone with just 1 that you were defending earlier when I was throwing-out numbers? Yes, He is still on the throne and He can very well do this! And He can very well do this through us!
Based on some quick adding and some quick math on my part. Let us state that there are about 750 churches with 300 members or more.
What if every church with at least 300 members, encouraged, taught, made a part of their culture, a membership tithe from the church. In other words if a church has 300 members they would ask 30 members to step out in faith and plant a church. If they have 400 members, 40, 500, 50…600 they plant two churches and send out two groups of 30.
What if a church such as Loma Linda University church made the decision to tithe their members. To call for 600 members to step out in faith and plant churches…what if they sent out 6 different teams of 100 to plant a church. 6 churches in 1 year. The same could be true for Pioneer Memorial Church, Pastor Dwight Nelson if he were to stand-up every year and teach every year his congregation to tithe themselves? Could they plant 3 churches of a 100 members every year? Why not? On faith they could!
Here is what I know about tithing financially. With an honest tithe I am never found in need! I believe the same would be true for our churches. If we stepped out in faith and said “we will not be satisfied with the inability to reach more people; we will not ignore the call to pray for more workers, we will actually send out more workers.”
If we were to do this, our churches would never be found wanting and the Adventist message would spread like wildfire!
Are you a Seventh-day Adventist believer? Then the above scenario is not something nice to throw around it is your calling!
“Upon ALL who believe, God has placed a burden of raising up churches.”
–Ellen G. White, Medical Ministry, p. 315
I don’t have a ton of Spiritual moment memories as a child growing-up. But the few I do have almost all center on music and Friday nights. On Friday nights in our home it would get very peaceful!!! My Dad would often read to us, I remember us reading the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis and all the Uncle Arthur Bedtime Stories. Even more than reading though we would enjoy music. My Dad loved music of all kinds and taught us to do the same.
Today I got nostalgic and decided to try and find some of the songs that still are in my head from those Friday nights at the Stuart’s.
I believe God used these songs to plant seeds in my heart that began to grow roots that kept me in a small way connected, even in the years I was trying to go far from Jesus. I believe this because in the days when I was listening to Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Cypress Hill, etc. In the days when I was depressed and stoned and pondering what value life had. I remember pulling out a mixed tape my Dad had made of all that great Friday night music, and I’d listen and sing at the top of my lungs, “Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus and He will turn your sorrows into joy.” I didn’t believe it then, but Jesus kept a seed in me, He kept me singing, and He kept knocking at the door of my heart.
So here is a little Friday night music for you to enjoy. I pray that if you haven’t opened your heart to Jesus that one day very soon you will sing the songs hear the knock and accept Him as your Savior!
Dallas Holm–Rise Again
Sandi Patty–Via Dolorosa
Evie–Give Them All
Heritage Singers–Me & My House
Gaither Vocal Band–I’m The Lighthouse
Amy Grant–El Shaddai
Larnelle Harris & Sandy Patti–I’ve Just Seen Jesus
The Gaither Vocal Band–I Believe In A Hill Called Mount Calvary
Del Delker & The King’s Heralds–Holy
We have a porn pandemic in this country! 12% of all websites on the internet are pornography. There is so much of it the government is making a listing for it, like .com, .org, .tv, there is now .xxx. Many people of older generations are oblivious to this crisis, but it is a crisis: 90% of children ages 8-16 have viewed porn. I personally wished I could have even made it to the age of 8! I was first exposed to pornography by a drunk, now deceased adult that thought it would be funny to show me graphic pornography at the age of 4. 30 years later I have no other media images in my head from that time of my life, but those still exist! Why? Because porn is evasive and corrosive to the mind!
There are those in our society that say Porn is no big deal, they even take the position well pretty much all males look at porn so “don’t worry about it”. Well I would have to say on one part of that I agree, I believe most men at one point or another have viewed pornography, but the majority does NOT determine morality. From my personal world view the scriptures determine morality:
“Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.” –Romans 13:13
We are told to walk properly and that walking properly includes avoiding LUST. Well for those of you that may not know porn is a breeding ground for LUST! There are many other texts throughout the Bible that admonish allowing our minds to be filled with lustful thoughts and yet when individuals view porn, that is indeed the singular purpose.
Porn is a pandemic! But it goes beyond porn! Our society is a sexually saturated society! In the old days the idea was protect your kids from all sexual images, now we must simply train our kids to avoid the worst of those images (i.e. 12-17 year old boys are the largest consumers of porn), because it is absolutely impossible for them not to see a billboard, a magazine ad, etc..
I remember I was about 7 years old, we were visiting some friends that had two older daughters. They were probably in their late teens, maybe even college age. On this occasion I happened to walk into a room where one of them was changing. She wasn’t naked, she was in pants and had a bra on, but I remember it being a huge deal, and getting yelled at. Why? Because to see a girl in her unmentionables was not appropriate for any man that was not her husband.
Well times sure have changed! My sons or their dad can’t walk through the mall without being exposed to Victoria Secrets (not so secret really), Abercrombie, Fredericks of Hollywood. Now as an adult I understand the need to avert my eyes to look away, but as a 3 or 4 or 5 year old boy that is probably a much more difficult thing to do.
My oldest boy often times when he is with me will point out blondes and say, “Daddy they look like Mommy” (even when they don’t at all, but the hair color is the same). We drive to Fresno and there is a billboard of a strip joint with a blonde on it…I always try to distract him with the trains on the other side because I don’t want him seeing the advertisement for the strip club, and saying, “she looks like Mommy.” I don’t want that image in his head.
Because, yes those images are bad too! You see we’ve begun to worry so much about graphic pornography that we’ve not realized the tempting images in our own homes. Images that are in your every day magazines and on your TV’s that the men in your home (although we shouldn’t just put the pandemic on men: 1-6 women struggle with a porn addiction), and your children are seeing these images and these images can be just as addictive to a young or an already susceptible mind. As a child we didn’t have pornography in our house, we didn’t have a computer where I could find porn, we didn’t have cable TV that I might “happen” upon it, but we did have Victoria Secret Catalogs and Cosmo magazine, etc.. Nothing that most would give any mind to, but they were for me dangerous ground.
Can I suggest to all families out there that you get rid of even those little things in your home! For my parents they didn’t know I had seen porn at such a young age, they didn’t know that I was already struggling with those things early in life…you just didn’t share stuff like that…I am sure there are many parents out there that don’t know the fight their children and or there spouses have to control their minds, and these small little things don’t help.
Early in our marriage I made a comment to Christina about it not being good for me to see even those Victoria Secret catalogs. I know that my wife has bought things from Victoria Secrets and I know when you buy something there you often get the catalog, and I know we used to get the catalog. But can I tell you since I told Christina that these images weren’t good for me 6 plus years ago, I have never seen a catalog or anything like it in our home. If she gets them she must throw them out! I am appreciative to my wife for that. Which leads me to some steps that we can all take in dealing with this pandemic.
First while we are on the topic. Women, although sometimes it needs to be men as well, help to protect your husbands (or wives for men)! How can you do this? Well most women I know, especially in the church world hate the thought of their husbands looking at porn and yet in the movies they watch, in the TV shows they watch, in the magazines they have around the home, they are desensitizing the mind to being open to such things. The male mind that is already susceptible due to exposure in the past, will have a hard time NOT having these things be triggers in their lives for further and darker actions.
Women can also help their husbands, by not treating them like pariahs if they do struggle. Something I have learned about sin through the years, when buried it has more time for the roots to grow so that later it sprouts a destructive weed! We bury things because we are embarrassed and are scared that we will not be loved if we share our challenges. So wives and or husbands love your spouse in a way that they will feel they can be open and honest not just with this struggle, but in all struggles.
Protect your children! Both parents. No computers in places that are not in a public setting! No TV’s in rooms. Let me tell you why real quick on this one with a story from my childhood. Let me start by saying I believe the devil wants to destroy our kids! And he’ll do whatever he can to try and expose our kids to dangerous and damaging things. Between the ages of 12 to about 15 I had a TV in my room. Now we didn’t have anything by that time but basic cable. No premium channels, no extras just the basic network stations, and a few extra channels like USA and Prime Ticket (to watch my Lakers:)). Anyway one night late I was flipping through to get to Nick at Nite, I loved the old shows, “The Many Loves of Doby Gillis”, “My Three Sons”, “The Patty Duke show,” etc. And as I am flipping there is a fuzzy channel, but immediately something catches my eye I notice through the fuzz a naked woman…
Well I couldn’t see her very well, but do you want to bet that I went back and checked that channel on several occassions. Only to find fuzz everytime, until one night…there was a perfectly clear picture, porn! And for three or so nights I had free graphic porn. I honestly believe with all my heart the devil made that happen! And for that reason alone, my kids will never have TVs in their rooms. You may say, “that is overreacting, or what are the odds really?” Well with the devil the odds for the bad increase dramatically! He wants our kids!
Encourage your children to be honest with you and also to feel that they can say and share ANYTHING. When i was shown porn at the age of 4 by an adult. And when in my early teen years an older woman watched porn with me. No one ever said to me, “DON’T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS.” I was never given that admonition. I just instinctively knew it was wrong and therefore kept my mouth shut. It takes a very strong and CLOSE relationship for your kids to be able to break through those natural barriers and share. So please, build those relationships with your kids! And when they do share something, don’t blow it off as no big deal, it is a big deal to them or they wouldn’t have shared it! And also don’t overreact like it is the end of the world. If your kid tells you that they saw porn on the computer and you run over yank it out of the wall and smash it to bits on the ground, they probably aren’t going to share next time! Oh and don’t start bawling profusely! Waterworks don’t help kids share either!
For those like me that have experienced levels of abuse or maybe just by their own doing have exposed themselves to stuff like this and now it has a hold on them. It may be necessary to seek help! That is OKAY! It is not weakness to need help. I am a very strong, strong believer in Therapists, Counselors, Psychologists, etc.. Get help! And I am one that personally believes it is better to get help from a professional than to just have your buddy or even your spouse help you. Why? Because with a buddy or a spouse there is always that temptation to “hide” or to make yourself “look better than you are.”
And for all of us, I believe the greatest help in this pandemic is Jesus! We need to spend less time in the things of the world and more time doing the things of God. Not as a way to escape or deny our problems, but as an avenue by which to reshape and rehabilitate our minds.
I recently was speaking with an individual that had been battling this issue for decades. But finally over the last several years there has been a level of victory. You know what they told me finally did it, that they just began to spend inordinate (at least inordinate to their previous history) amounts of time just falling in love with Jesus through the study of the Bible and prayer. Getting rid of things they used to watch and do, instead giving that time fully to Jesus, His work, and His Word.
The Bible tells us this,
“Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” –Psalm 119:11
We can’t simply take something out of our lives, we must fill that gap with something else. So fill your brains with the Word of God. Memorize scripture, hide it in your heart; allow God to provide a level of protection, healing, and victory that ultimately can only come through Him!
In closing I want to say to folk out there that may struggle with this pandemic! Jesus loves you this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong they are WEAK, but HE is STRONG! Yes Jesus loves you, yes Jesus loves you, yes Jesus loves you, the Bible tells me so!
You may hate yourself and see yourself as awful. But what I read in the Bible and what I have experienced in my life (as one that walks with the definite limp of sin) Jesus loves you and sees you as His beautiful and glorious child. He already died for you on the cross, accept that gift and let Him work out the junk in your life in His way, in His time!
If you are someone that is a member of my church, I want you to know as well. Your sin whether this or any other doesn’t matter to me, you are still welcome and loved at our church! I hate all sin, not just the secret ones! I hate sin because I love the people I see these sins destroying. So please be a part of the family, don’t hide, let us love you, pray for you, and journey with you!
Thanks for reading y’all. Let us all pray that through the power of God we will fight the good fight and finish the race.
Dr. Jack Haskins a professor at the University of Tennessee did s study to determine the effects of a five minute radio program that was filled with negative news stories: children blown up, earthquakes, riots, etc. One group listened to these types of stories JUST 5 minutes a day, the other group, the control group listened to positive news stories for the same 5 minutes.
Haskins in evaluating the subjects at the end of the study found that those who listened to just 5 minutes of negative radio reports daily were: (1) more depressed than before; (2) they believed the world was a negative place; (3) they were less likely to help others; and (4) they began to believe that the negative things they heard would soon happen to them.
How could this be? Could 5 minutes of negativity really have that much impact on someone?
What happens with a life of negativity?
Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he,”
Like it or not we are in part products of what we “THINK.” If we think negative all the time, more than likely our lives will be somewhat negative. Now I am not a “name it and claim it” preacher. I don’t believe in prosperity theology or the idea that bad things never happen to people who are positive. But I do believe that life for many is miserable because they think “half-empty” thoughts 99% of the time rather than “half-full” thoughts.
I know this because negativity was my life. In high-school and even early in college I had a VERY negative thought pattern. I could always find the negative in a situation: I complained about my job, I complained about school, I complained about relationships, I complained about the government, I complained about the church, I complained about my sports teams, I complained about…well you name it I am sure I complained about it. I was consistently negative. Christina, my girlfriend (now wife) at the time, wanted to introduce me to her friends, I hadn’t even met them and I was already being negative towards them. I remember Christina asking me if I liked anyone? I told her, “I like you and I like my friends. But that is about it.” I was negative!!!
You know what is weird all those years of being negative, I found myself obsessed with death! My best friend Scott regularly used to tell me how morbid I was and that I didn’t need to constantly talk about dying. But I couldn’t help it, my negativity was effecting everything about the way I thought.
Then I went to Africa…many stories here to share but I’ll save them for another time…but while in Africa I daily did two things: I served others daily and I spent an abundant amount of time in prayer & Bible study.
My day would consist of rising around 5:30 or 6 in the morning spending at least an hour in prayer and Bible study. The rest of my morning would be spent in preparation to share the Gospel, then in the afternoon I would go out and visit locals, walk around the streets, appreciate the simplicity of things. Then in the evening I would preach. I would end each night studying the Bible more, reading The Great Controversy, and praying–then I would chat with my roommate Ben Martin ’till I fell asleep.
After just about a month of this I found my outlook on life completely changed. I didn’t even fully realize just how much ’till folk back home began to comment on how different I was. My parents, my friends, Christina. They all will testify that since that time in Africa I have never been the same.
I went from extremely negative to extremely positive.
Daily I meet people and speak with people that are just like I was. If I say something positive, they find the negative. If I try to encourage they retort with a complaint or negative remark. I have come to see negativity as a great pandemic within our society…a pandemic that is spreading with the help of media and even our own peers who speak negativity around us and so we get sucked in and join the negative dialogue.
So how do we break it? I believe my Africa experience is key!
Does that mean you have to go to Africa to become a positive person? NO! Because what ultimately changed me can be experienced right here in the U.S. of A..
Two things:
(1.) Daily time with the Lord in Bible study and prayer
(2.) Daily looking for opportunities to serve others
1.) When our lives are void of the presence of God we will be negative, yes if you are not spending time in prayer and Bible study your life is void of the presence of God. God is not impacting our lives simply b/c we hope for it, we must connect. Just like I can’t impact my kids lives if I never spend time with them. It doesn’t matter how much I love them from a distance if I am not around them, I have no influence. In like manner, if God is not around us, by us allowing Him to speak to us through prayer and Bible study, we are not influenced by Him.
2.) And when we are not serving others and only living for ourselves, we’ll find that negativity takes deep root! Self-centered living is negative living. Whenever I spend too much time worrying about me, I find that I tend to become consumed with what is happening in my life and when I become consumned with anything other than God I tend to become negative. I have noticed that as I have grown as a pastor I have lost negativity. Why? Because I have a passion to reach people! And being consumned with the desire keeps me positive. Also being a parent has forced me to become more and more positive. What my kids do, even when they frustrate me, isn’t ultimately about me! My free time is about my two boys! And therefore I don’t have a lot of time to think about maybe what is wrong in me, but rather I am living in service to my wife, my sons, my church, my community. This outward focus builds my positivity.
The verse I quoted earlier said “as we think we are!” I guess I am basically saying, if you think about God and you think about others honestly and sincerely by doing actions of service for them, I promise you your negativity will disappear. You will be happier and so will everyone else around you!
(Stay tuned for more “Pandemic” posts this week)
“Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.”
” –Zechariah 3:1-5
Is this not one of the most beautiful Gospel texts in all the Bible?!
It is a courtroom scene, a judgment scene. There stands Joshua, obviously guilty in His filthy garments. The author of that filth the one who made Joshua filthy is also demanding justice. He, Satan, is the prosecuting attorney. Isn’t it ironic the one that authors our sin, leads us into sin, is in the end the one that will ultimately demand our lives. How quickly evil turns on itself.
I love how in this passage we don’t see Joshua, the one accused, the one guilty, the one needing to defend himself even speak a word; but he doesn’t need to! The Lord stands up and speaks on his behalf. The Lord tells Satan to be quiet. The Lord then commands the filth, the guilt be removed. And then the Lord speaks again and commands that new clothes, freedom, guiltless living be put on Joshua.
We make the Gospel very hard, but when we stand before the Lord He reads our hearts. He reads our sorrow. He knows our regret and our desire for things to be different. And because God looks on the heart He speaks over us forgiveness and newness of life.
I pray today no matter how guilty you are, that you will be willing to stand humbly before the Lord and let Him clean you and make you new through the blood of Jesus.
So a few months ago in another post I was somewhat criical about our Adventist Publishing companies not being up to date on the ebook side of things. I then had to send out a little plug to Pacific Press for being more on the ball than I realized.
And while I am appreciative of Pacific Press and their ebook site, I’ve still been asking for more, yet while asking I recently found out that right under my very nose, a member of my church in fact has a self-published ebook.
So I decided with all my previous criticisms about us not promoting the things we as Adventists do have out there well, the least I could do is to make y’all aware of Kay Rizzo’s new book Flee the Tiger which is available for you to buy at Amazon as an ebook right now, for all you ebook folk.
Now a little disclaimer, I haven’t read this book personally, but I still wanted to make y’all aware of it. So head to Amazon if you are into this type of literature and happy reading!