Friends,Pagans and Rioters

Please read Acts 19:23-41

The near riot in Ephesus is a unique and fascinating event in the Acts history.  A thorough study of this passage would fill a book but there is one phrase that ought to grab our attention.  In Acts 19:31 we read, “some of the Asiarchs who were his friends…” Who or what were these Asiarchs?  We have no comparable role in our society.  There were 10 of these leaders from the major cities of Asia Minor, they were selected locally, but had to be sanctioned by Rome.  They were responsible to organize and produce the annual games in May.  In this way, they were similar to a college football, bowl game committee.  They were also responsible for the performances at the theater.  In this way, they were like a board of directors for a Broadway theater.  They also had oversight for the entertainment and distractions of the region.  Here they are not unlike the executives of our multimedia conglomerate. They actively lead or had oversight for the religious rituals associated with the games, the theater, and the worship of the Emperor.  In this way they were the priests of a pagan cult.  They did all of this at their own expense.  Here they are a near equivalent to a modern, wealthy and generous philanthropist.

Some of these men are described as “Friends of Paul”.  We can safely assume these were not casual acquaintance kind of friends, but were rather close friends and they knew Paul fairly well.  There is no evidence that the disciples sent word to the Asiarch who in turn sent word to Paul that he should not go to the theater.  More likely is that when the Asiarchs saw what was happening in “their theater” they knew Paul well enough to know he would want to come and address the crowd.  These men were not casual acquaintances of Paul; rather they knew him so well they could predict his behavior.  And they cared for him so much they wanted to protect him.  These men were pagans, but they knew Paul well and care for him deeply.

One of the greatest failures of the church today is we gather disciples into Christian ghettos, areas of isolation from the world around us.  We have encouraged our people to serve on our committees, our boards and our teams to the exclusion of serving in and with our lost friends and neighbors.  We would imagine that serving on the VBS committee would be superior to service at the YMCA or public library.  We run from contact with the world and therefore we have no impact on the world.  If we or our congregation were in a crisis situation would the sinners and non-Christians we know come to our aid?  If the our church was on the verge of closing would our community say, “”How can we help?” or “Good riddance”?  I think we know the answer.  Here is a better question, a more proactive question: How did Paul become friends with the Asiarchs and how can I reproduce that in my life?”

A new approach to short-term mission trips

I was reflecting this week back to a short-term mission trip by a couple of the folks from a church I once served.  To give you full disclosure when this project was proposed I expressed opposition to the project.  I recommended that the trip not happen.  The church board decided that while the project would not be funded by church funds the church would encourage the four people going and would appeal for members to privately contribute to the trip.

So it was that four people from our congregation went to the other side of the world for a 10-day mission trip.  By the time you count almost 2 days travel each way and a day and a half to recover from jet lag once there the trip was more of a 5-day mission trip.  While there the team painted several classrooms in a school and “helped” with a VBS program.  I suppose that in the entire community, city, or nation there were no Christians who were painters who could have used the work, so it was essential for Americans to come and paint for these “backward natives”.   Now we all know how valuable VBS can be.  But this VBS was not long on the schedule, but was put together at the last minute so the short term “missionaries” could have something to do.  However, the “missionaries” didn’t speak the native language so they were relegated to helping the kids do crafts.  Having not had time to plan extensively the locals were pressed into a “busy work” VBS so there would be lessons.  The American “missionaries” did crafts, namely they colored pictures out of coloring books.  Yes, we sent people half way around the world to color pages in a book and the walls in a building. 

When the missionaries returned and gave a report they talked more about the following:  Great seafood that was really cheap, great massages that were really cheap, the tour of an orchard that grew exotic (to Americans) fruit that was really cheap, and the amazing animals they saw at the zoo (by the way admission was really cheap).  The leader concluded that not everyone thought this trip was a good idea-here he glanced over to me-but, “When I saw the smile on a little girl’s face I knew it was worth it.”  Pardon me while I swallow back my vomit. 

Okay, I know that not every short-term mission trip is such a huge fiasco, but it is time that we stop and look at the foundational premises behind our trips.  If we do, we might find that a radical rethinking of these mission trips is in order.  All I am asking is that we reconsider our perceptions and presumptions.  

·      Short-term mission trips are a great way to recruit career missionaries.  While that was true at one time, as we have dumbed down what happens on these trips we may not be recruiting life-long missionaries as much as creating “Jesus tourism consumers”.  We need to look carefully at the numbers and see if what was once true is still true. 

·      The value of the mission trip cannot be measured in dollars.  That is true.  However, as good stewards of God-given resources we need to have a sort of spiritual “Return On Investment” evaluation.  To say, “If it helps one person the cost doesn’t matter,” is painfully naive.  What if those same resources used in a different way could have helped 1,000 people?  Stewardship is to some degree about the ROI, the unrighteous servant returned the master’s money in full.  It would have been better if he had a better ROI. 

·      By having short-term mission trips we can develop more long-term support for the mission.  This maybe the only reason that missionaries in the field put up with the short-term mission visits.  But if the reason our people support a mission is because they had an experience we have to ask hard questions about motivations.  We need to look at our teaching about the universality of the church and our belonging to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.  To support the missions with which we have an experience is not too unlike the motivation to be part of the Heritage USA scam of PTL fame.

·      Short-term mission trips change people. Ou, oux, oun! Greek for no, NO, NO.   It is the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that changes people.  If the only way people can change is to have them travel half way around the world so they can imagine they are heroes to a group of lesser native people we have a profound misunderstanding of, well, almost everything. 

·      Short-term mission trips encourage believers.  Sometimes this is very true.  But, as we will see in a moment, there are better ways to do this.  But in some cases the short-term mission trips are discouraging to the local believers.  Never forget that Americans are high maintenance, expensive and quite frankly often not worth the trouble.  We need to stop thinking of ourselves as the heroes whose presence is a dream come true for the native Christians.  Those believers have a rescuer already, and they may know Him better than we do.

So, is there a positive solution? Yes, but it is not good for our ego.  What if rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars to send a group of people over there we brought one of their leaders over here?  If you look at the church in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America you will find that in most ways it is doing better than the church in America.  Maybe once you get beyond our wealth we really have very little to offer.  Once you get beyond the poverty of third-world Christians they have much to offer to us.  We might benefit from learning from our brothers more than they benefit by our going and trying to solve their problems. 

It is likely that hosting a pastor for a month and having him teach us about prayer, fasting and faithfulness under persecution would generate less excitement than our plans to travel to an exotic location.  We will likely have fewer car washes and bake sales to bring him over and send him home with plenty of resources for ministry than our “Jesus Tourism” trips would offer.  But the fact that we are so motivated by what we want and what appeals to us is indicative of how dark our hearts really are.

To return to the opening story the almost $20,000 spent for four American Christians to color paper and walls, could have paid the full-time salary for a minister for years.  Instead, one American has the subjective warm feeling of a little girl’s smile.  If we think this is a good plan may God have mercy on us. 

Final disclosure.  I went on a well-planned, short-term mission trip.  I felt that at best it was a dog and pony show.  Even in the midst I saw that we (the Americans) were not really accomplishing much.  And this was a well-planned trip.  However, my wife and I have for many years supported a missionary who is a life-long native leader.  He is reaching his people and doing it the right way (See 2 Tim 2:2).  We have discussed the possibility of going over and seeing this long-time dear friend.  But we have come to the conclusion that the many thousands of dollars to make such a trip would better be used helping widows and orphans. Which by the way is something that his ministry does.  After all we will have all of eternity to enjoy each other’s company as we worship God together. 

The post I never wanted or expected to write

In the fall of 1972 my oldest brother went off to college.  To pay his way through school he got a job at a fast food restaurant in Greenbriar mall and so I was introduced to Chick-fil-A.  Two years later my second brother attending the same college went to work at the same unit and when I entered college I followed suit.  While I was in college I occasionally attended Jimmy Collin’s Sunday School Class, he was the VP at Chick-fil-A. When I was a newly wed I was a bi-vocational minister and worked at the Chick-fil-A headquarters as a courier.  I met Truette, Dan, Bubba among others and ran errands for every floor of the brand new corporate headquarters. When Chick-fil-A was market testing waffle fries I was one of the people who ran down to Shannon Mall and picked up samples to bring back to the office.  I was Doodles the chicken before the Cows came along.  When our kids were little we planned a family vacation just to visit the headquarters. After my son was born the first thing my wife told me to do was go get her a Chick-fil-A sandwich.  I bought at least one Chick-fil-A calendar every year up till the last year, when they were not very good values.  (Was this a precursor?)  All four of my kids got their first job at Chick-fil-A.  When there was a “boycott Chick-fil-A day” organized by LBGT groups I ate there twice that day. I was faithful to Chick-fil-A even when they discontinued the carrot raisin salad, the wonderful chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast and the Chicken-Q sandwich.  My A-club membership number, which was what they used before the app, is 531. To support a local charity I held a book signing at our local Chick-fil-A.  When I say I am a long time Chick-fil-A supporter I know of what I speak.

Chick-fil-A has long traded on and built itself with a good name within and support of the Christian community.  This week we find that Chick-fil-A will no longer support two organizations that have a strict position on marriage.  It seems that the pressure got to Chick-fil-A and they caved. Allow me to quote from an article from thetakeout.com, a website that reports on the fast serve food industry. “Executives felt that this (good food, good service and community influence) was being overshadowed by its reputation for supporting homophobia. Rodney Bullard, the head of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, told Business Insider that the company wanted to focus on non-religious youth programs that were “relevant and impactful in the community. For us, that’s a much higher calling than any political or cultural war that’s being waged.” https://thetakeout.com/chickfila-ends-lgbt-donations-salvation-army-fca-1839940460

To be sure they have sold out the determined loyalty of some of their most faithful customers in an attempt to curry favor with progressives and expand their sales opportunity in places where they have been barred.  Smart people sometimes make really bad decisions.  (On this subject I highly recommend the book Think Again by Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead and Andrew Campbell.)  The top floor at Chick-fil-A is going to be disappointed by the results of this move.  LGBT proponents have described this as the move of a pawn.  The camel has its nose in the Chick-fil-A tent and is going to want more.  Allison Hope of CNN wrote: “I'm a lesbian with a long history of activism. I know firsthand that protests work to get attention when nothing else does, and then you shove your hand in the slightly open door that's been locked for years, and you shake the slimy hand on the other side.”  What did Chick-fil-A gain?  Not much!  What did they lose?  A lot!  Maybe their very core character.
When I worked at the corporate office on Buffington Rd we had weekly devotions and prayer time.  At the time Chick-fil-A was considering expanding into Japan.  A number of executives went on a trip to discuss if this could be a new market.  I vividly remember seeing the special-ordered business cards with the Chick-fil-A logo and everything else in Japanese.  Later, in one of our devotions’ sessions it was reported that Chick-fil-A would not pursue opening in Japan.  The speaker, Dan Cathy if I remember correctly, said, “We do not want to be unequally yoked; we will not trade what we believe for money.”  I cannot tell you how proud I was of Chick-fil-A at that moment.  I can only tell you I am that ashamed right now.

Some will say, “It is just a business decision.  The kind made by Wal-mart, Starbucks, or GM.”  That is true.  But those companies don’t trade on the name of Christ.  I believe it is just a business decision for Chick-fil-A.  Just like the business decision I made yesterday when I drove past three Chick-fil-As (all of which I have patronized before) to go to Pop Eye’s to get a chicken sandwich.   Which by the way tasted better and came with a more generous serving of fries.

I am a strong advocate of engaging LGBT individuals with the good news of the Gospel.  But to cave to the pressure of special interest and punish organizations like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for the sake of trying to hide from your heritage or win market share is beneath the Chick-fil-A I have known and loved for almost 50 years.

The Little Boy and the Bird

“…I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children…” this in part is the suicide note of photojournalist Kevin Carter.  You most likely do not recognize the name Kevin Carter but you have most likely seen his most famous photograph.  It is a truly haunting picture of a little boy (mistakenly identified as a little girl) who has collapsed on his way to an aid station.  Behind the little boy is a waiting vulture.  The photograph won Carter a Pulitzer Prize.

We live in the most materialistic, selfish, and richest nation in the history of the world. Things that we take for granted, indeed, that we treat as a right are for most of the world and most of history items that only the richest of men or gods of myth could possess.  The wealth of our nation and culture has not left us unaffected as the church.  In fact, we are often times reflective of our culture not a witness to it. 

We will one day stand before God and give an account of our lives.  That accounting will include what we did with the resources that God entrusted to us. James, the Lord’s brother, tells us, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  James 1:27 

A Christian or congregation that lacks generosity, compassion and mercy is a Christian or congregation that can expect to not receive generosity, compassion and mercy.  The measure we use for others is the measure we can expect.  How can we live out the life of a disciple in our dealing with our money?  One of the best things that can happen in the life of a believer is to give sacrificially, even heroically, to a cause or ministry that will not benefit them.

Much of our giving to the church is ultimately self-serving.  We give for new buildings for our use, for new programs to meet our needs, to hire additional staff to minister to us.  Giving that is entirely selfless, that doesn’t come back to bless us, is truly sacrificial.  We need to challenge our people to give heroically, the kind of giving where the only benefit we receive is that we are set free from the slavery and idolatry of wealth.

We can help your congregation with a mission-specific, stewardship campaign that can have a profound impact on the missionaries you bless and on your people who are doing the blessing.  Call us about a “Faith Promise Mission Campaign” to change the world and our hearts.

Charlie Crowe

352-548-4837

Reading Acts 5:1-16 with church growth in mind.

A church will not be healthy and grow without church discipline.  While the case of Ananias and Sapphira is unique and does not have any reproducible methods for the church today there are certain principles that we would be wise to understand and apply. 

One principle is to understand people sometimes have their own agendas.  As Christians we tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, which is good, but it can also lead us to an unrealistically positive view of people.  We do not know what Ananias and Sapphira’s agenda was but it was not simple generosity.   We have often been told they wanted esteem like that given to Barnabas.  That seems a little shallow and too easy. “Great Fear” is the description of the reaction of the people.  This takes a little thought to tease out.  If Ananias and Sapphira had been notorious, slimy, over-the- top-wicked people the reaction would perhaps have been more muted.  Perhaps the church would have said, “Good riddance” or, “Finally”, but if they were well know as evil, great fear would likely not be the reaction to their death.  The church was in “great fear” because they saw in Ananias and Sapphira God’s reaction to hearts that harbored hidden and unrepentant sin, condition common to all to some degree.  This moment was a call to take seriously personal holiness.

Church discipline is primarily about restoration of the wayward believer.  But at a broader level it is about rooting out sin from the body as a whole and from disciples as individuals.  It is a preventative to keep the destructive power of sin from spreading.  No church and this is an absolute certainty that fails to address willful, open and unrepentant sin will ever be effective.  In fact, when sin is open, unrepentant and not confronted it is empowered and will come to dominate the congregation. 

Which brings us to the second principle we need to understand and apply.  When discipline is direct, effective and holy something wonderful happens.  In verses 1-11 we see God directly carry out extreme church discipline.  In vss. 12-16 we see an explosion of the ministry of the church.  It is no accidental coincidence that the Holy Spirit is seen leading great ministry in the aftermath of the discipline of Ananias and Sapphira.  We know that God will not work with people who are hardhearted and unwilling to confront evil in their own hearts and lives.  That is also true of congregations and churches. Before we ask if dying and stagnant churches need new tools, techniques, methods or songs, we need to ask, “Do these churches need to confront the willful sin that has lived unchallenged in its midst for years?”

Church discipline is perhaps the least enjoyable thing a congregation will ever have to do.  It seems so much easier to “Go a long to get along”.  There is a fear that confrontation will cause an ugly scene and the church will no long be a happy family.  Rather than a “happy family” analogy let’s use a body as the metaphor.  Unrepentant sin is a cancer.  Surgery with a follow up of chemo and radiation will not be pleasant.  It will be painful and recovery will take some time.  However, if dealt with early is will be easier to recover.  If left untreated it will be fatal.