A HISTORIC TRAGEDY

I grew up in a place called “Maiden Rock”. It’s one of many riverside communities that wind their way through our country, along the edge of an iconic waterway. A small township on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River, Maiden Rock occupies a total of 1.18 square miles of beautiful Upper-Midwest real estate. The first house was built there in 1853 by the J.D. Trumbull family. Over the next 150 years, the entire population of Maiden Rock grew to 119 residents, with a grand total of 31 families in it…

Mine was one of them.

Just south of the village is a steep bluff, after which the town is named. According to an Indian legend, a young Sioux girl named “Winona” felt pressured by relatives to marry a man whom she despised. As recounted on a placard along Hwy 35 at the base of the cliff, “It was evening, and she had not been united more than an hour, before they missed her from the lodge. Nothing could be found of her until morning, when they discovered her at the foot of this precipice”. This young maiden never loved the man she married, and the misery was enough to bring her to the edge of a cliff and destroy herself, just to get out of the relationship.

Winona’s body has since become a fitting illustration of an ageless truth:

Covenanting yourself with someone you don’t intend to love, is suicide.

A MODERN REALITY

The start of the coming year will mark the beginning of Covenant Membership for this little ministry. We will begin with a dozen or more individuals, conceivably, each of whom promise to strive for a healthy, happy, long-term relationship with the other people in our church. We’ve waited a long time for this, and now we’re about to pledge our loyalty to one another for all to see.

Are we excited about that? Or do we feel like Winona?

Nothing makes a person feel more vulnerable than when they bind themselves to somebody else, for better or for worse  

I wonder if, either right now, or at some point in the future, we’ll have applicants who seek to become a member of this church out of mere obligation. People who feel pressured by their “relatives” within the fellowship, but don’t actually love the family they’re marrying into. People who reluctantly go along with the plan in hopes that no one will really notice how non-committal they actually are. Outwardly agreeing to it all, but inwardly despising the one to whom they promise their supposed affection, lacking the courage to say something before it’s too late.

If that’s the case, let me be clear: I don’t want anyone to formally pledge themselves to this church out of a sense of duty or requirement. If we are going to enter into a Covenant bond with one another, let it be done with mutual love, respect, & commitment, or not at all. It dawned on Winona’s family all too late that traditions & formalities can’t mask lovelessness for very long. In her case, it worked for no longer than 60 minutes. Let’s all be careful of making the same mistake, lest we follow in her fatal footsteps. If you’re already finding yourself resistant to such a union with us, and yet intend to go through with it anyway, you’ve already started your lonely walk to the edge of a cliff.

TAKING THE LEAP

I am not suggesting that making a commitment like this should come easily or without concern. A Covenant promise is saturated with heavy implications, and if you’ve given them the attention they deserve, you may find yourself with “cold feet” as the day draws near. Nothing makes a person feel more vulnerable than when they bind themselves to somebody else, for better or for worse. But rest assured, if you’re nervous about it, we are too. Remember…we’re in this together.

We’re excited for our future together and hope that you are too

This is a big step for us to take, both individually and corporately, and it’s my prayer that we’ll all survive the jump. A certain amount of anxiety is to be expected, but let’s not forget, so is enthusiasm & gratitude & joy! This should be exciting! A wedding without happiness isn’t much of a celebration, and if there’s no delight behind the joining of yourself to the people of this church, you might question whether you’ll be able to keep your vows for very long.

A FUTURE TOGETHER

Every church has a pile of bodies at the “foot” of their own “precipice”. People who got themselves into a committed relationship with a particular ministry, only to regret that decision soon thereafter. At the end of the day they forsook their Covenant, wandered away, and died. But just because we saw them fall doesn’t mean that we need to follow them over the edge. Can’t we write a different story? Will we honor our commitment to one another?

Anyone in this fellowship who is, or ever will pursue Covenant Membership, ought to take some time and evaluate their motives. If you aren’t in this for the “long haul”, and you need some time to rethink, please do it now. Go no further until you really love us and unless you’re ready to live like it. We’d rather be “left at the altar” than to marry a fraud.

If your decision to Covenant yourself to our church is compelled by genuine Christian love, we’re excited for our future together and hope that you are too. But if it’s being done out of obligation or pressure, please understand, you are committing an act of spiritual suicide. It will profit you nothing to enter in to spiritual Covenant if, in the end, you leave in a spiritual casket.  

TODAY A BRIDE, TOMORROW A BODY

Next year’s census might change the population statistics for Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, but it can’t change her grim history. A little village named after a mangled body discovered at the foot of a cliff, who, only one day prior, was a beautiful bride named “Winona”. A young Sioux girl who chose a quick death instead of life in covenant with someone she never loved. End of story. And, whether we like it or not, that same sad drama has been repeated in Christian communities on both sides of the Mississippi ever since. Will our little church family be the exception?

Ten years from now, when it’s time for our next census, will you still be alive & well, in faithful Covenant with us? Or will you finally grow intolerant of Christian unity, and choose to join the other ill-fated souls at the bottom of the bluff?  

In July, 1986, George Holtyzer of Belgium, walked 418 miles in about 6 ½ days…backwards!

Have you ever tried to walk backwards? It’s hard. It’s so hard that most people give up before they’ve gone very far at all. Even George. As impressive as his effort might’ve been, he quit in less than a week, simply because human beings weren’t designed to face opposite of the direction in which they travel. The shape of our feet, the placement of our eyes, and the arrangement of our toes are all indicators that God, when He created us, intended that our focus should remain in the very same direction that we walk. Forward…Always forward.

PREOCCUPIED WITH THE PAST

Most people understand this just fine. They know enough to keep looking onward so that they can see where they’re going, at least in the physical realm. But when it comes to spiritual things, many people are walking completely backwards. They try their best to move ahead in life, but their attention is always on that which lies behind them. They’ve experienced something in the past that has so thoroughly captured their attention that they simply refuse to turn away from it. They’re convinced that who they are today, and where they go tomorrow, has ultimately been answered by what they’ve experienced in the past, for better or for worse.

Walking backwards…can cripple you over time

For some it may be the faulty genes they inherited at conception, the negative influences that shaped them as a child, or a particular trauma they suffered along the way. For others it’s a more positive experience; their “golden years” perhaps, or their college days; their wedding, or the birth of a child. It hardly matters whether the details of a person’s past are upsetting or uplifting. Either one has the same potential to keep a person so mesmerized by the events of yesteryear that they can neither face the challenges nor see the opportunities that lie ahead. Walking backwards might seem exciting at first, and preferable for a while, but it can cripple you over time.  

A DANGEROUS JOURNEY

When a person pays greater attention to where they’ve been than to where they’re going (whether physically or spiritually) they’re making the journey far more difficult, dangerous, and inefficient than the Lord meant for it to be. In sharp contrast, modern psychology insists that every problem we face in life is somehow linked to our past. God, however, designed us to move forward, with our focus in front, not behind.

The Apostle Paul writes to the believers in Philippi saying, “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, I reach forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Apparently, God has ‘prizes’ for those who get their directions right. That makes Paul a good example for us to follow. Not George. Paul. Thanks Paul.

FALLING DOWN

There’s no better way to set yourself up to stumble and fall than trying to walk backwards. A person can’t prepare for the future when they’re still staring into the past. Yet many walk this way, not only because they’ve been captivated by something behind them, but because they’ve got so little to look forward to.

Spiritually unambitious, they give little attention to God’s Word which gives them the promise of eternal life. With little or no awareness that their life is eternal, they give little or no attention to what lies ahead of them. With no eternal perspective, their whole life is wasted with tripping over the smallest of sins and obstacles. Their backward walk with Christ is little more than one injury after another. It’s frustrating for them and for Jesus both.

FACING THE FUTURE

God is very intent that His children get a firm grasp of the reality of their spiritual and physical future: “Those who die in the LORD will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!” (Isaiah 26:19). Jesus wants us all to know that “He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live…whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

Why should we walk backwards through this life when we’ve got so much to look forward to and prepare for? It’s a foolish waste of time to remain unable to “reach forward to what lies ahead” because you’re so engrossed with “what lies behind”…especially since you don’t have to! If your “progress of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” is being hindered, it might be your own fault. Nobody walks backward by accident. Not even George Holtyzer. If you’re doing it, it’s because you’ve chosen to. You need to turn around and find your stride. Walking backwards for too long will compromise your entire spiritual posture.  

Nobody walks backward by accident

It’s not as hard as you think to turn around. Anybody can do it. Some people, like George, realize this after only 6 ½ relatively brief, yet agonizing days. For others, unfortunately, it’ll take a bit longer.

PRESSING ON

What’s in your past is history. Have you accomplished great things for the Lord? Congratulations, but there’s more to be done. Have you sinned? Move on. Have you suffered? Get going. Have you fallen? Get up, get some help, and push ahead. You’ll die soon enough, so there’s no need for you to live like it’s already happened. Time is running short for all of us, and the only chance you have to invest in your own afterlife is now while you live. Don’t waste your time. Serve Jesus, fight the fight; run the race.

You can spend your time walking backwards if you like, or you can march ahead like Jesus who, “For the joy set before Him” endured the greatest trauma known to any living being in history. Nothing stopped Him from going forward. May we all, without distraction, move forward like soldiers, undeterred by the experiences and events of yesterday.

I have dwarves on my lawn. Three of them, and they’re all from the same family. One of them was born in Wright County, MN, while the other two (believe it or not) are grandchildren of the Duchess of Oldenburg. They came up on a truck from Missouri shortly after we moved in 10 years ago, and they’ve been living in my yard ever since. Not to be confused with the average, lifeless garden gnome either, mine are alive & real and full of fruit. And, as of late, they’re making me nervous.   

Malus Pumila from the Rosaceae family, otherwise known as “Honeycrisp”, the three apple trees in my backyard are of what’s called a “dwarf” variety. Topping out at 8-10 feet tall, these dwarves will never grow to be as large as some of their relatives within the greater Rosaceae family, but they’re perfectly suited to occupy a small yard like mine (which they do, and have, for many years now). They may be small, but they’ve weathered many storms and survived some of the coldest winters on record. They came in the mail no bigger than twigs, but they’ve long since grown into strong young trees, eager to provide my family with applesauce and pie. These are no ordinary dwarves. The Duchess of Oldenburg would be proud.

Slow Growing

As strong as they are, and as proud as the Duchess may be, these dwarf trees haven’t yet reached their full potential. Over the duration of their life in my yard, I’ve seen very little fruit. One of them just last year yielded its first (and only) apple, while another had yet to produce even a single blossom. It almost goes without saying that I haven’t been eating a lot of pie in recent years. However, I hadn’t necessarily been expecting a whole lot of fruit from them either. I know that it takes time for a fruit tree to mature, and I’ve been willing to wait. My dwarves haven’t disappointed me in the least. On the contrary, I am delighted to have them in my yard…apples or not. 

In fact, at the start of prior seasons I remember pinching blossoms off of my trees in order to give the branches time to grow & thicken. Apples get heavy, and producing fruit too soon can break the limbs and prove counterproductive. Dwarf trees are known for doing this, and I didn’t want that to happen with mine. Better to make sure the tree is strong enough to handle the fruit it produces, rather than producing fruit as fast as possible to the detriment of the tree. I’m not hoping for apples this year only. I’m after fruit that lasts season after season.

Full of Potential

Well, this year has proven to be different from the rest. In mid-June all three trees were so filled with white apple blossoms, it looked like it had snowed on them. Pinching them off would’ve taken a month, so I figured that it was time to let my little dwarves do what they were always meant to do: Make fruit.

It wasn’t long before their blossoms gave way to tiny green apples. Those apples went from tiny to small, then from small to medium, and by mid-summer they had become substantial in both size and weight. The Thomson’s and the Rosaceae’s alike had been waiting a long time for this. It was exciting for all of us.  

It’s now late summer, and my trees have had a year like none before. They are liberally decorated with the finest fruit they have ever produced. The apples they hold are healthy & beautiful, absolutely delicious, and simply too many to count. And with the end of the growing season still several weeks away, they’re bound to grow even larger, juicier, and, of course, heavier. And that is the cause of my recent concern.

“Producing fruit too soon can break the limbs”

The fruit I’ve so patiently waited for has now become the very thing that’s making me nervous. The branches are still relatively thin, and bowing like wooden rainbows with the weight of the apples. Can they handle it? Will they break? Is it possible for a tree be ruined by its own fruit?  

Self-Destruction

The three trees in my yard make me wonder if we sometimes underestimate the value and importance of a fruitless season in our spiritual life. It’s a good thing I barred them from bearing too much fruit in years past, they can hardly carry the weight of the apples they’ve got now! Those dwarves, just like us, need to recognize spiritual maturity as being equally critical to the ongoing success of our ministry as the fruit we covet.

We’re so easily discouraged when the growth of our church stagnates for too long, or when our efforts to reach the lost fail to produce immediate results. But how can we be sure that periods of barrenness aren’t by God’s design? What if slow growth and scant success is God’s way of keeping us from destroying ourselves? Just because we can’t see any fruit doesn’t mean that the tree has died. It’s more likely an indication that its best years are still to come.

Conversely, even when a ministry seems to be producing volumes, it’s still susceptible to breakage. Some churches have been known to do that, and I don’t want it to happen to mine. I’ve looked over the fence into neighboring orchards that were far more prolific than ours, and what I’ve seen isn’t always a pretty sight. I’ve seen ministries that grew up so quickly and produced fruit so fast that the ministry itself crumbled under the weight of it. It came and went like a boom town, and all that’s left to show for it now are a few scattered apple cores. Overnight success is sometimes the worst thing that could happen to an organization. Let’s be careful what we wish for, and content with what we have.  

Small but Strong

Our church is what many would consider a “dwarf” variety. We’re one of the small ones. We’ll never get too big, and we don’t grow very fast, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of producing fruit. Indeed, producing fruit is what we are meant to do, and I believe that we already are in some measure. We’re certainly not dead. However, if our sole focus is on the production of spiritual fruit, we might be in big trouble. If the branch itself doesn’t have enough integrity, the weight of the fruit is going to destroy us.   

“Is it possible for a tree to be ruined by its own fruit?”

Being a relatively young church, we might feel discouraged when we look back across our own branches and see so few apples dangling from them. It’s easy to get frustrated at how long it can take for a ministry to gain some traction. But I can assure you, God is not disappointed in what He’s getting from our little fellowship. The last decade might feel like a long time to us, but God’s in no hurry for gobs of fruit. Not like we are anyway. If anybody’s getting impatient, it’s us.

If God would’ve allowed us to produce the all the fruit we’ve ever wanted, especially early on, we’d be broken to bits by now (it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time fruit got somebody in trouble with God). But He didn’t let that happen to us, with good reason. He’s spent the last 10 years keeping us safe from ourselves and making us stronger in the meantime, preparing us for what’s to come. And I believe that He is pleased with the growth He sees, and that our best years are still to come. We owe God our sincere thanks for pinching off our blossoms in times past.

Branches Full of Blossoms

With the startup of campus ministry upon us, and a new year looming just ahead, the JFB community is entering into an exciting new season of ministry with a lot of potential. We have high hopes. We see branches full of blossoms, and like every year, we’re starting to ask the same questions: “Will it work? Is this the year? Will we finally bear a substantial amount of fruit?” But these are the wrong questions to be asking. Rather than concerning ourselves with whether we’ll produce fruit or not, we ought to be concerned with whether we could handle it if we did. 

This might be the year. But are we ready? Maybe we’re ready, maybe we’re not. Perhaps we’ll enter into a season of great fruitfulness. But can we handle it? Maybe so, but it’s equally possible that the Lord’s decided we need another year to thicken. Either way we’re in good hands. God knows exactly what we need to survive the cruelest of seasons and weather the worst of storms. We’ve been through plenty of it already, and we’re still alive. If we don’t see fruit today, we will tomorrow…Jesus promised, “I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit”.

Keep Going, Keep Growing

whether it’s a fruitful year for us or another barren one, progress is being made here. The future looks good for us, and the Lord is pleased with us and our dwarf church.

As far as the Rosaceae family is concerned, I might need to go and rescue them from doing permanent damage to themselves. It’s been raining all day, and they’re drooping like crazy. Looks like the Thomson’s will be having pie pretty soon.

Privacy Kills

Somewhere between four & five thousand healthy American’s die annually from choking on food, which means it kills more people than accidental shootings or airplane accidents. It’s number four on the National Safety Council’s list of death caused by “unintentional injury”. Somebody chokes to death every 2 hours, and over 95% of them will die in a safe & comfortable environment: At home. Statistics show that more people die from choking than die in fires. These statistics, however, as true they are, can be misleading.  

It’s common knowledge in the medical world that many choking deaths could’ve been prevented if only the individual hadn’t been so afraid of public humiliation. Out of sheer embarrassment, choking victims are known to silently excuse themselves from their company, calmly walk from the dinner table to the bathroom, lock themselves inside, and die privately. Ask any paramedic and you’ll find that the real cause of death in many of these cases wasn’t choking at all, it was too much dignity.

Choking at Church

The House of God is no stranger to dangerous levels of dignity. People can get comfortable over time in an environment like ours. They start feeling “at home” in their position, not realizing that home is the most dangerous place to be in regard to choking. Complacency sets in, and once it does, they grow a little too over-confident & self-permissive; they start to indulge in questionable attitudes & practices. Pretty soon they’re stuffing more unholy thoughts, desires, and behaviors into their life than their soul is able to swallow. Everything seems alright until they’re unexpectedly seized by an abnormally large portion of sin that they aren’t able to spit out. Not wanting to draw any attention to themselves, they do what they can to hide the truth of the situation. And more dangerous than the actual choking, they impulsively conceal their panic behind a calm demeanor and pretend to be fine.  

The House of God is no stranger to dignity…

In the church culture, this lethal form of dignity is better known as ‘pride’. Pride is refusing to concede that something has gone wrong at all. It’s not asking for help when you need it the most, for fear of the imagined social repercussions. It’s defending your integrity to your own detriment. When sin lodges itself in your heart and cuts off your life-giving supply of the Spirit, pride is what keeps you acting like everything’s normal. You might be dying, but pride doesn’t care. Rather than seeking help, pride steers you to the bathroom where you can try and save your own life, all by yourself, in private. And once that happens, you’re in greater danger than ever.

Swallow Your Pride

There is a calculated maneuver which has proven effective time & time again in rescuing a person from airway obstruction. It’s a technique that can be used by anybody, amateurs and professionals alike. It has saved lives every day (over 100,000 in fact) since its initiation in 1974. The dilemma, however, for those with too much dignity, is that it requires the help of another person. And that’s exactly what victims of pride try to avoid. Nothing scares them as badly as needing help from someone else. In some cases, it appears, death is preferred over accepting rescue.

Nothing less than full surrender…can liberate a person from pride

There is likewise a cure for pride, but like its medical counterpart, it’s stubbornly avoided by those who need it most. The Biblical practices of confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness are some of the most sidestepped activities among pride-choked Christians. Some would rather die than to go through the inevitable shame associated with a procedure like that. They might try to put everyone at ease by making a forced confession (without really owning it), repenting outwardly (but not inwardly), and asking for forgiveness (before they’re even really convinced of their wrong), only to realize, you cannot dislodge pride with minimal effort. The issue is still an issue, and you still can’t breathe. Nothing less than full surrender to God’s instruction in a life & death situation like this can liberate a person from pride. Many victims have realized the truth of this just a little too late.

Unwanted Publicity

Perhaps it’s the nature of the rescue procedure itself. It hurts! The cure for choking is aggressive to say the least. The victim is usually pounded in the back, slapped, punched, and when that doesn’t work, squeezed until they hopefully spit up. Ribs are sometimes broken. The whole process is invasive & demeaning. It’s confrontational, and, worst of all, it’s usually public. If only choking were between me and you alone, but it rarely is. Choking never checks to see whether you’re dining alone, or if the restaurant is packed, with a line out the door. And pride is no different. Pride doesn’t care if people are watching. In most cases, it waits until they are.

No One Here Doesn’t Choke

All of us will choke, but only some of us will die. It should go without saying, but there’s nothing dignified about being found, dead & alone, on the proverbial bathroom floor with a throat full of pride. You haven’t protected yourself from embarrassment by hiding your issues from us, you’ve only secured it for yourself by refusing our help. Godly people don’t reject help…Godly people pray for it. “If they correct me, it is soothing medicine. Don’t let me refuse it” (Ps.141:5).

Sometimes it’s comforting to know that the one who’s helping you, has himself needed help from others at one time or another. We all have pride, and we all choke on it sooner or later. If you have reason to be ashamed of yourself, please understand, we all do! We’ve all felt that embarrassment, and we’ve all been tempted to ignore the truth of our situation. No one looks forward to the Biblical rescue process, because the techniques that save our life hurt every time. But we’ve all felt that pain, and we probably will again. So you are not alone. 

All of us will choke, but only some of us will die

How many of our friends, who share space with us at the Lord’s Table, are choking on their dignity right now? How many are pretending that they’ve swallowed their pride when they’re still not able to enjoy the fresh air of Christian fellowship? Don’t avoid help because it hurts, & don’t reject it because it offends. If you do that, you’ll die on the floor. And we’ll all know the real reason why.

   

Once upon a time, you were small. Very small. Nearly invisible. Almost as tall as a poppy seed, in fact. Your whole body, from top to bottom, used to be no more than two cells wide. But those two cells were healthy and active, and they multiplied. And they multiplied again. And then they multiplied yet again. The zygomatic stage was a short one, and nine months later, you were hardly recognizable. Ten years after that and you were another several bazillion times larger. And now? We’ll, you’re nothing short of megalithic. A virtual monster by comparison. You could probably crush a pop can if you wanted to.

Physical growth is normal & expected of a fetus. It’s anticipated and celebrated. Growth is a telltale sign of good health, hope, and strength; an expression of life and the promise of a future. And it’s also quite instructive.

In many ways, the physical body is a walking, talking parable of the church, with much to teach us about typical growth & development if we’re willing to learn. One of the simplest, yet easy to miss lessons is this: If the cells are healthy, the body is healthy. It may sound elementary, but it’s important to remember. If you hope to grow bigger, you’ll need strength at the cellular level. And it’s no different for churches. If the people in it are healthy, active, and reproducing, the church will flourish. If they are spiritually sick, sluggish, and sterile, the church is going to die.

Personal Effort

The smartest man in the world once said that, “winning souls” was a mark of true wisdom (Proverbs 11:30). What Solomon meant is that the intelligence of an individual is partly revealed in the success of their evangelistic efforts. In other words, seeking converts is not the work of fools. Whether they can’t do it because they’re foolish, or they won’t do it which only proves them to be foolish, evangelism is a field in which fools will rarely if ever be found. Because the winning of souls doesn’t happen mindlessly, fruitful evangelism is reserved for the wise. It requires thinking, and it requires labor, and it requires bravery. Lots of it.

Salvation is never accidental. If souls are to be won, it’ll either happen on purpose, or it won’t happen at all. It takes passion, prayer, thought, and effort (probably in that same order). Take away any one of those crucial ingredients and you’re bound to lose the souls you had expected to win, or left them to be won by someone else. Someone wise.

Personal Responsibility

Please notice that the work is to be done by the individual, not the church. A fellowship full of people who count on the activities of the church to do their evangelism for them is guaranteed to stunt in its growth. Outreaches will never be as fruitful as one-on-one ministry. Until the cells are ready and able to proliferate on their own, the body can’t grow. Healthy cells multiply, and when they do, the body gets stronger.

A church only grows if and when its people are eager and desperate to win souls. A prayerful & persistent Christian can do more effective advertising for the church in a single month than all the cereal commercials at General Mills can do in the entire year. The effectiveness you hope for is directly linked to the work you do within the field of evangelism. You can work your fingers to the bone in all other areas, but if you neglect that one particular field, the church will atrophy.

Personal Assessment

When a cell stops working, it dies and gets replaced. This does not guarantee, however, that the cell automatically goes away. The body is full of dead cells that still manage to attach themselves to it, even though they no longer contribute to the health & growth of the body. Unfortunately, the same is true of God’s church.

People who used to invite everyone they knew to join them on their mission, have long since lost their enthusiasm. They became too intellectual or grew too complacent. Some got too busy. Others replaced evangelism in their community with a service position in their church, and the fire that used to burn for the lost souls around them flickered out. And then they got bored. And though they don’t necessarily pose any real threat to the overall health of the body, they don’t hold any real value either. They bear a striking resemblance to who they were when they still had passion, but the life has long since gone out of them. They’re still stuck in the same spot as they were when they died, and like dead skin, they’re just waiting to fall off. Don’t let that be you.

A Personal Note

Dear Church: As we head into these summer months (which tend to be very outreach oriented and evangelistic in nature), let’s be careful that we’re still looking for personal opportunities to multiply. After all, those are the ones that will make the real difference. The health of the body depends on the cells.

Are there opportunities right in front of you that are getting missed because you’re too preoccupied with private interests? Are you expecting the church to fill the quota for personal evangelism that you alone are responsible for? Prove yourself healthy by pushing yourself into the lives of those around you with a spiritual purpose. Prove yourself alive by engaging with those outside of the church about eternal matters. Never let the busyness of your schedule suffocate the personal concern you have for the lost. Don’t let yourself rest until you’ve made yourself available to them. It’s time to fish for men.  

-Pastor Justin

In November of 1988, a baby boy was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and hardly anyone knew about it. His parents named him ‘Hafpor’. Thirty years later, he stands at 6’9”, and weighs 440 pounds. Hafpor Julius Bjornsson is currently designated the world’s strongest man. If you’re unfamiliar with what that means, let me spell it out for you: I drive a Chevy Colorado with a 3-ton towing capacity, while Hafpor has a fifteen-ton towing capacity. I can pull a trailer with my truck. Hafpor can pull airplanes with a rope.

Like all babies, Hafpor started out little; and like most babies, he grew. He grew in both physical dimension and social distinction. Not only is he the strongest man in the world, he’s also an actor. Starring in several roles on TV & film, including a part in the 4^th season of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones”, people everywhere have now seen his face. Hafpor has become hard to hide in more ways than one. That obscure little boy from Iceland just isn’t the same as he used to be. Hafpor grew up.

Becoming a Body that Fascinates.

It’s not his size that makes Hafpor so impressive, it’s his strength. There are a lot of men in this world that stand taller than he does, and many more who are heavier than he is, but no one on the entire planet is stronger. And that’s why we’re so fascinated with his body. No one seems to envy fat; that’s just size without strength. And few people would want to be taller than everyone else, because (aside from a career in the NBA) the advantages would be so outweighed by the disadvantages. But strength? Who wouldn’t want to be a little stronger?

Strength is what God is looking for in our churches more than anything, and what we ought to be striving for above everything. Maturity, stability, spiritual durability. The Body of Christ should be fascinating the world, and it doesn’t need to be big to do it. It only needs to be strong. The Lord God is known for doing great things through small groups of people with little to offer but spiritual resilience. Think of Noah’s family, and what they accomplished. Remember Gideon’s men, and what they did. Consider Esther and her uncle. Look at the Apostles. The amount of weight they were able to pull is remarkable. Maybe that could be us. What would it take?      

Two Ways to Gain Weight.

Donuts or dumbbells. Both are equally capable of helping a person grow larger, but you don’t need to be a genius to know which one is the healthier route. Why then, in the church, would we expect God to make something impressive out of this ministry through our mere ‘snacking’? Snacking is when someone goes easy on themselves in the crucial areas of spiritual life like true humility, self-denial, and genuine repentance, by keeping it hidden beneath a thick blanket of church service & participation. There’s no real strength there, just a bunch of fluff. It’s like bulking up on a heavy diet of junk food by about 40 pounds and then thinking you can beat Hafpor at next year’s Strongman Competition. That simply will not happen. The church needs a better strategy than that.

The major difference between you and Hafpor is not so much your size, but your situation. Hafpor works alone. When he pulls an airplane, he does it by himself, but you and I pull as a team. We are inherently dependent upon one another, and if we hope to be strong at all, we need to be strong together. Anyone who refuses to pull their own weight is weakening the whole team.

You need to understand the significant effect your private life has on the rest of the people in this church family. What you do when you’re alone is partly responsible for the health you see in each other when we’re together. We can either pray for each other faithfully, or we can sin against each other clandestinely. Either practice will have an equally tangible, but very opposite effect, on the people you interact with at church. Your private life is either contributing to our health, or our demise.  

Don’t Be Like Achan.

It only takes a single individual to hold back an entire team. Achan’s folly reminds us of that (Joshua 7). He secretly took what was not his to take, and worse, he refused to confess it. Because of his private sin and the necessary deceit he used to keep it hidden, the army of Israel suffered public defeat. Thirty six men died because of him, the whole nation lost heart because of him, and God’s people were stopped dead in their tracks because of him. On account of one man’s compromise, corporate zeal was replaced with widespread cowardice, and the hope they once had was sufficiently stamped out. The entire community sustained loss, all because of Achan. Everybody was pulling their weight except him. What a haunting testimony.

Be Like Hafpor.

It’s senseless to believe you can be part of a strong church if you aren’t strong yourself. If you’re not pulling your weight, you’re forcing everyone else to do it for you, and sapping the strength that we’re supposed to have. Do you want to belong to a strong church? Are you willing to make the personal sacrifice for that to happen? We’ve got no less potential than any other group of believers, in any part of the world, at any time in history. If God can preserve the entire human race with 8 people in a boat, or save a whole nation through a young woman & her uncle, or reach this world with the gospel through 12 blue-collar men, then think of what He might do through us…

If Hafpor can pull a plane, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be moving mountains.

Can God do great things through our church? Yes, He can.

Does God want to do great things through our church? Of course He does.

Will He do great things through our church? Not sure. Are you willing to pull your weight?