Archive for July, 2008

Gut Check:  a test or assessment of courage, character, or determination

Village Missions is experiencing a “gut check” in recent months as we face a multitude of financial pressures such as staff conference expenses, poorer new fields, health insurance premiums, rising pension costs, and cutbacks in giving from our largest donor.  It has been extremely challenging to me personally to implement several cuts that directly affect Village Missionaries and still grapple with a $175,000 deficit.

Such a situation tests my reliance upon God and trust in His sovereignty.  Do I really believe that there is nothing impossible for God?  I mentioned at our staff conferences how Hezekiah showed his faith in God when he prayed for deliverance from the Assyrians.  I have asked God to give me that kind of faith!

This “gut check” also causes me to examine whether I am fully convinced that God has more for Village Missions to do.  The next years will be difficult years for us.  As director, will I have the “courage, character, or determination” to do what needs to be done?  God must supply this “courage, character, or determination” but I also must be convinced of the cause.  It will be a “gut check” for all who say they believe in keeping country churches alive, requiring much more “courage, character, and determination” than in years past.  It will require people to pray earnestly and give sacrificially.

Why then do I think that God intends Village Missions to continue?  I’ve come up with ten reasons why it is important that Village Missions continues to do what it does.  I’ll consider five reasons in this blog article.

Reason One: It is important for Village Missions to continue because of the importance of the local church.

This ex-hippie has been passionate about the local church since I trusted Christ at a gathering of the Rainbow Family in Colorado, hitchhiked back to New York, and the first Sunday showed up at a little country church in Warwarsing, NY!  A year later, after we were married, Carole and I moved to Idaho and began attending the Fernwood Community Bible Church.  I don’t have the space to relate how much that local body of believers, especially the Village Missions’ pastors, helped me to grow spiritually.

Today the local church is under unbelievable attack, even from within supposed evangelical circles.  Frank Viola and George Barna, for example, with a Biblical hermeneutic that must be derived from polling, statistical sampling or spin the bottle, confidently proclaim that the local church is dead or at least so warped that it must pass away.  In clear contrast, Paul made sure that Timothy knew the importance of the local church when he referred to it as “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).  The church is just as important whether it is composed of twenty people or twenty thousand!  Jesus did not say that He would build His church until certain people grew tired of the messiness and human frailty of a local body.  He simply said, “. . . I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18).  Village Missions follows Jesus as He builds His church in rural North America.  I believe that it is critically important and Biblically valid to keep country churches alive, especially where local gospel witness ends if the local church closes.

Reason Two: It is important for Village Missions to continue because of the importance of lost souls. 

I’ll never forget what Jodie said to me after she trusted Christ in her living room.  She said, “My sister always told me I needed to be saved but she never told me how!”  Countless people in country communities all across the United States and Canada have no idea what it means to trust Christ.  I met a man named John who recently came to Christ on one of our fields.  He had never been to church, his parents had never been to church, and his grandparents had never been to church. 

Jesus made sure we realized the value of lost souls to God when He told the three-part parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.  The shepherd left the flock to search for the one lost sheep.  How we need people to be burdened for the Jodies and Johns of this world!  Most people are reached for Christ only through personal contact.  When a church closes, that personal contact is lost.  In one of our new fields, almost twenty people have come to Christ in two years! 

Reason Three: It is important for Village Missions to continue because of the importance of rural people.

A Village Missionary named Emmitt Curtis traveled seventy-five miles one way to pick up a young teen named Gene Poppino.  Gene went on to become a leading trainer of youth leaders.  Jackie Scorza came out of a Village Missions field in California.  The Lord has used her and her husband to bring thousands of people from the Au tribe to Christ.  Fourteen people have gone into full-time ministry from the little Village Missions church we attended in Idaho.

A few years back we tried to calculate in some small measure the worldwide impact of Village Missions.  I believe we discovered over one hundred and twenty countries where missionaries out of Village Missions fields were serving.  Of course, we have helped many churches that are not currently being served by us.  If you consider missionaries out of those fields, the impact on the kingdom of God is truly staggering.

Traditionally, seventy-five percent of missionaries and pastors have come from rural churches.  We can be determined to continue because we know the difference it will make across the world.

Reason Four: It is important for Village Missions to continue because of the potential to demonstrate the glory of God.

Today, if a denomination wants to plant a church, in most cases it will conduct a demographic study.  They look for areas with significant potential and then launch tried and true methods, often derived from business models, to plant a church.  Often a denomination will recommend closing a rural church or a church that has declined in attendance.  A “bottom-line” mentality leaves little room for a miracle of God.

Village Missions seems to specialize in places where only a miracle of God would produce a revival of the church.  The population is declining, the morale is low, problem people dominate the church, and everyone has lost hope.  We just started serving a church in Helix, OR.  We were their last chance.  We have served hundreds of “last chance” churches and seen remarkable turnarounds.

What a marvelous way for God to get the glory!  These churches have no “razzle-dazzle,” “glitz or glamour” to account for what is happening in their midst.  The Lord once reminded Zerubbabel of this reality when he told him, “`Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

Reason Five: It is important for Village Missions to continue because I personally have experienced its impact.

I have seen Village Missions work up close and personal!  I know that the likelihood of a church in Fernwood, Id was virtually zero because I lived there.  Today, it is only one of three churches in Benewah County that have a full-time pastor.  I know about the effectiveness of “Preaching the Word and loving the people” because I had a Village Missionary couple who did that for me!  I know what it’s like to make a progression from depending upon Village Missions for the salary support of our pastor to stepping out in faith to take on the full salary.  I know what it is like meeting with the District Representative as a board member and benefiting from his wise counsel.  I know what it is like to have a smooth transition in leadership from one pastor to another because of Village Missions.  I know what it is like to have a Village Missionary who cared for me and knew me intimately, giving wise counsel as I grappled with entering full-time ministry.

I am living proof of the viability of Village Missions.  When you cut me, I bleed Village Missions because I have received so much personal spiritual benefit from the organization before I became a Village Missionary.

Gut checks can be good although extremely painful.  I have renewed excitement about this ministry and willingness to do what it takes before God to keep it going.  Why?  Because excellent reasons exist for Village Mission to continue keeping country churches alive.  We’ll explore more reasons next time.

Jennings, MI was once a thriving community in the early 1900’s with several plants and mills related to the lumber industry.  When the lumber ran out all the plants closed and the lumber company moved over 75 homes to nearby Cadillac.  Jennings began to morph into a forgotten community known for poverty, crimes, and drugs.  A small church tried to shine the light of Jesus Christ, but when their pastor retired, the church was ready to close.  Jennings was sinking into further despair and darkness but God had different plans!

After the church asked Village Missions to provide leadership, we sent Larry and Kathy Shetenhelm to Jennings in January 2006.  Jennings was the first church served under our Sliding Scale program, where we not only provide salary support but also cover the health plan.  The church moves forward first in contributing toward the health plan and then the salary according to a scale that adjusts for various ministry costs.

The turnaround in Jennings in two short years is nothing but a miracle.  Sunday morning, April 20, I spoke to a church full of people excited about Jesus Christ and what He was doing in their midst.  I met John, who Larry led to Christ and baptized last summer along with his wife Dorothy.  Neither John nor Dorothy had any spiritual background whatsoever.  Neither he, nor his parents, nor his grandparents ever attended a church but now John is a new creature in Christ and hungry to study the Bible.  You can see pictures of my visit to Jennings and some of the people I write about in this blog by following this link.

Larry led Jeff to Christ through his jail ministry.  When Larry first met Jeff in jail, he was arrogant, proud, and disruptive.  Coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, Jeff trusted Christ and became humble and hungry for the Word of God.  Pray for Jeff and his family as he serves his sentence in a federal jail in Chicago.

I’ve never been in a church where so many had recently come to Christ.  The entire back row was filled with teens who have a reputation for being part of the wild crowd but were hungry for love and something different in their lives.  Bob wore a neck collar because of a botched operation on his neck.  He had battled with workmen’s compensation for years, which left him extremely angry and bitter.  Larry and new Christian John cut, split, and hauled wood for Bob.  Bob started attending church after they did that.  Larry visited him in the home and Bob trusted Christ.  He now is also a changed man-in just a short time he has read the Bible through three times and Larry is going through the Pal Plan with he and his wife.  He bought 200 copies of the Daily Bread, put a label on them with Jennings Church information, and distributed them throughout the area.

Jennings is one of our pilot churches for the Awana club program.  This winter they averaged 22-25 children every meeting.  We will have to work with Awana to make some modifications-none of the kids knew the slightest thing about the Bible.  Teenagers especially, who wanted somewhere to go, came to Awana, but had no background knowledge.

God has led Larry and Kathy to help the community in other ways.  Interested parties contributed to a project to haul away trash and tires from Jennings.  They rented the largest dumpster they could rent and men volunteered to go around the community picking up trash from homes.  This is how they met and befriended John, who has very bad knees and couldn’t clean up his property.  They cleaned up his property on Saturday and Sunday he and his wife were in church.  Very few other people in the town wanted any help but within two nights, townspeople filled the dumpster to overflowing.  They borrowed a front-end loader to pack down the garbage and shortly they filled it again.  They also took away 110 tires!

Already the congregation is covering the Benefit Plan and sometimes contributes to salary.  The mission statement of what is now the Jennings Community Church is “Proclaiming and demonstrating hope in Jesus Christ.”  Hope has come to Jennings through a dedicated Village Missionary couple and the ministry of Village Missions.

We are facing extremely difficult financial and recruiting challenges in our sixtieth year as a mission.  We have invested over $51,000 in Jennings since January 2006.  What has happened in Jennings as well as in many other places we serve reminds me that God is still very much at work in and through us.  Together, as we look to God in prayer and jointly seek ways to move forward, may He enable us to continue to serve places like Jennings!