Is my role in the fight against the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) personal? Absolutely, and it should be, this is why.

 

The Mustard Seed Mission committee accepting an award for Outstanding Service from Venango County Human Services in 2012.  This was our team, and I'm proud of that team and what each member contributed, but this picture also includes, after they left us, those who went on to bring the Torah Clubs to this community.

On of the criticisms that has been aimed at the Franklin Ministerium following our decision to publicly warn the Christian community about the theology behind the Torah Clubs (First Fruits of Zion) {The Franklin Christian Miniserium's warning against the Torah Clubs and the First Fruits of Zion} has been that our action didn't arise out of sense of pastoral responsibility or Gospel fealty, but rather is personal in nature.  That criticism implies that a personal motive in such a case is a base motive, an unworthy motive, that somehow diminishes any claim to Truth we might be making.  While it is true that personal motivations can be the basis for abusing authority or power, it is also true that any confrontation that involves the people, places, and institutions into which we've poured our hearts and souls cannot help but be personal.  For us, as pastors serving in this community, to be dispassionate about this issue, and disconnected from it emotionally, would itself be a dangerous sign.  Do we really want pastors who aren't personally invested in what they do?  

The following reasons are why this issue is personal to me, it isn't an exhaustive list, and my fellow pastors who have taken this stand with me would have their own list (although no doubt with much overlap).  Consider it and decide if, "this is personal," really should disqualify us from speaking with authority; for all the reasons below I don't buy that at all.

These are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

I'll lead with the most universal of motives, one that we all are required to share as followers of Jesus: Love for each other.  Given that Jesus commands us to love one another, in fact making the law of love the centerpiece of his New Covenant, it isn't optional, we have to love.  Therefore, anyone who has shown themself to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, someone redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, is my spiritual brother or sister.  We are family.  When an issue concerns our family, doesn't it need to be personal?

I can testify that those who have taken up leadership positions in the Torah Clubs (2/3 of them here locally I know well enough for this) have demonstrated over the 11+ years that I have been in Franklin, a love for Jesus Christ, a willingness to serve his Church, and a zeal for righteousness.  I have no doubt of this.  

Which is why it troubles me all the more when I see evidence that these brothers and sisters in Christ are embracing Modalism (A denial of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed), or elevating Torah above the rest of Scripture, or following an organization that claims only those who keep Torah (think kosher, Sabbath, festivals) are the ones who truly love Jesus.  These are real people, that I know, who have gone astray, watching them do so had better be personal to me, and it is.  As a shepherd of the sheep, while they may not be in my flock, watching them wander off into the wilderness while spurning our efforts to call them back to safety, is painful.

In addition to the leaders who are known to me, the Torah Clubs have pulled in a number of committed Christians whom I know, whom I respect, and for whom my concern for their spiritual well being is very real.

I've worked alongside them previously on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

As the captioned picture at the top of this post shows, I once proudly stood alongside two of the local Torah Clubs leaders back in 2012 when we were all honored by the county for our role in leading Mustard Seed Missions.  In that first year, and for some time after, we worked together weekly, sometimes daily, to help those in need as these two individuals held key roles in our organization.  As the President of MSM, I relied upon their work and dedication as we turned that idea into something that has now helped over 1,700 families in its ten+ years of existence.  To have once pulled on the rope together in the same direction, and to have had success in doing so, only to a few years later see these same people that I once strove with striving now against my work, my ministry, and my passion, is hard.  To be forced to call them out (not by name, that's a conscious choice here) because they're harming those same things, and to now oppose what they're passionate about and have dedicated their lives to, can't help but be emotional.  We once were on the same team, I didn't change what and who I represent, but we find ourselves in opposition now just the same.

This is my town, my community, my home.

Baptist polity makes this one different for me than most of my fellow ministers.  I'm a free agent when it comes to where I serve the Church.  I'm originally from Michigan, and Michigan will always be where I'm from, but at some point after my wife Nicole and I moved here to Franklin in 2012, this became our home.  It started for me with my opposite corner of the 11th and Liberty intersection neighbor, Pastor Jeff Little, who was the first to welcome us and has since become a "friend closer than a brother."  It continued on with joining the ministerium where I was welcomed by Pastor David Janz, Pastor Scott Woodlee, and Mother Holly, among others.  We formed a bond, worked together, dreamed of what might be possible in this community.

In all honesty, and I've written and spoken about this before, Franklin was the first community that ever treated me with respect, that every cared about my ideas, and that accepted me in a leadership role.  That I was able to help create Mustard Seed Missions in this community, less than a year after moving here, is a powerful testimony to how gracious the people of God have been to me in this place.

For much of my time here I have also served as a member of the Venango County Christian Ministerium, an organization I helped start.  We bring together the Christian community throughout Venango County for a joint worship service on Thanksgiving and Palm Sunday, and have also over the years organized the observance of the National Day of Prayer and the 40 Days of Prayer during Lent.  It is known in this community that I have put significant time and effort into building ecumenical bonds among our churches.  The Church in Venango County matters to me.

This is also where my daughter, my precious Clara Marie, was born, this is her home, if I needed any more motivation to be invested in what happens here, that's one more reason.  Is it any wonder that when I see a threat to this area's Christian community it feels deeply and painfully personal to me?

This is my Church.

As a minister ordained to serve the Church of Jesus Christ, in my case as an American Baptist minister, the universal Church is my Church.  Whenever I hear of false teaching, of dangerous charlatans milking it for money, or demagogues using it for their own ends, it touches a nerve.  I have written and spoken against such many times over the years, but these dangerous always originated elsewhere, were a greater danger to other local churches than our own.  That doesn't make doing our small part any less important, each one of us who serves this Church faithfully is diminished by each person who uses it as a means to an end.  Each time it is harmed, our small piece of it is harmed too.

Whether we, as a ministerium, can convince the Christian community of this or not, everything in our education, training, and experience is telling every one of us that what the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) are teaching, and what they're aiming to do, will harm the Church.  That this movement is outside of the historic, orthodox, and apostolic tradition and teaching of the Church.  We also know that it is rejected by the history, theology, and leadership of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches.  Should not harm caused to the Bride of Christ be personal to every one of us who belong to it?  

This is my church.

Within that universal framework exists an untold number of individual churches.  First Baptist Church of Franklin is my church.  This is true on two levels: (1) This is where I worship, fellowship, pray, and serve, and (2) this is the congregation with whose care and protection I have been entrusted.  Thus both my own personal Christian discipleship which takes place within this congregation that I belong to, and the people for whom I will one day give an account before Almighty God as to how well I served as their shepherd, are at risk when a dangerous idea aimed at the Church takes root in our community.  For my own sake, and for the sake of my people, this fight is deeply personal.

The Torah Clubs are being presented as just another Bible study.  In reality, it is an effort to proselytize within the local church.  By the admission of the founder of First Fruits of Zion, the Church is the mission field.  It is not the Lost who are sought after to join this movement, but those already in fellowship within local churches who are being told that the Church (and their pastor by extension) has been lying to them about Jesus all along.  We are purposefully the targets, and taking us from the historic, apostolic, and biblical faith and practice in which we were raised is the goal.  I wouldn't make this claim lightly, but having read such things in their own published works, I'd be a fool to not take the threat seriously.  This is an organization that believes it will bring about the End Times by converting the Church to the practices of Judaism.

{The evidence of this motivation and goal:An Examination of the unorthodox beliefs of the First Fruits of Zion, their Torah Clubs, and the Hebrew Roots Movement in general} 

Let me add this, each of us who has accepted the role of pastoral leader has taken up a sacred trust.  We must not only preach, teach, and demonstrate the Gospel to our people, but we must also go forth, thankfully in this case not alone, to protect the sheep from the wolves.  Whether or not this is dangerous to us is not really a question we can entertain, it must be done.

This is my Gospel

The reason why protecting the Gospel is personal to me is clear: It saved me too.  At this point in my life I'm an ordained pastor, a leader within the Church, but I too was once just a kid who learned that Jesus died upon the Cross and rose again from the dead to save me from my sins.  I put my hope and trust in that salvation, was baptized, and began a life of fellowship in the community of believers.  Like that old commercial where the guy says he liked the product so much he bought the company, I'm a defender of the Gospel because I know what it has done for me.  When I sing Amazing Grace, the words are my words too.

So let me count the cost

We could, as a ministerium, have done nothing, we could have remained silent, we could have hoped that this movement would prove itself to be the latest fad, here today, gone tomorrow.  Lord willing, when we look back on this moment in ten years it will be with relief, it will be with God-honoring stories of how some of our fellow Christians lost their way for a time, but how the grace of God once more brought them home.  We pray that this will happen, but after many hours of discussion and research, as a ministerium, it was clear to us that we had a role to play, "for such a time as this," that we would have to take a stand.

If the local Torah Club leaders continue to embrace the notion that the proper form of Christian discipleship is to 'live like Jews' {Which is the bedrock belief of the organization whose teaching they chose to bring to our community}, doing so in the face of everything we as this community's pastoral leaders are able to do to show how false and dangerous this path is to them, if they will not repent, and personal and painful as that will be for me and the rest of the local pastoral leaders, our other task remains and cannot be set aside: We must protect the sheep from wolves that would devour them, and I make no excuse for that being entirely personal to me.

My thoughts featured by the Project on Rural Ministry (of Grove City College)

Recently I was asked by Pastor Charlie Cotherman if there was something about rural ministry that I might write for the Project on Rural Ministry (of Grove City College).  After a short period of thinking the obvious choice was to write about the lessons learned from the success of the non-denominational parachurch ministry, Mustard Seed Missions, that I was blessed to be part of the founding and have continued since it began in 2012 as its President. 

Stand in the Gap, Together: How Cooperative Ministry Can Empower Small Churches

Did God answer Jesus' prayer for Unity among his followers? - John 17

 

A memento for the once dominant multi-clergy trivia team created
by my wife Nicole (our one non-clergy member on the team,
 but representing yet another faith tradition).

John 17:20-23     New International Version

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Recently a wise Christian brother from my parents' generation wrote this to me: "I have always been puzzled that the Father never answered Christ’s prayer for Christian unity in John 17".  After reading the email I came back to that statement.  If Christian unity was a debate topic, it seems you would have plenty of people willing to argue that the Church is not now, nor rarely has been, unified.  But that sentence stuck with me, and I wrote him back that I just might want to argue the opposite in a blog post, so here we are.

One of the community wide ecumenical planning meetings
that would soon lead to the founding of Emmaus Haven
(Note: Clara Powell ready to share her input)

Is the Church 'one' and does that level of unity encourage others to believe that the Father sent the Son?

To begin to answer such a wide ranging question we must first ponder its basis.  What would unity look like among followers of Jesus Christ, and how would that differ from disunity?  Peaceful co-existence vs. violent antagonism is one measure, and we can consider how much of that those claiming to be Christians have shown to each other.  But what other measures should we consider?  What about commonality of Authority?  Creeds?  What about leadership structure, is unity defined by having one ecclesiastical flow chart, or by having a variety of entities that all more/less follow Paul's writings on how a church ought to be governed?  Is unity of worship style part of the discussion, or is that a cultural manifestation instead? {I would argue that cultural unity of style was never Jesus' intention}  In the end, how much unity or disunity one finds in the Church today or in various points in its history, will depend to an extent upon how many factors are being considered and which ones receive the most emphasis.  In brief, then, let me offer the following marks of unity for consideration:

1. The functional unity of the Early Church

While our evidence is somewhat scanty, the period from the founding of the Church by the generation that witnessed Jesus' life, death, and resurrection firsthand, until the years of great persecution by the Roman Emperor Trajan (AD 250-260) saw the Church functionally as one unit with a loose and developing ecclesiastical structure that began with virtual local church autonomy in the first few generations, and then in succeeding generations saw the bishops of the great Christian communities like Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome gain authority in their areas, all without significant schism or heretical movements.  As the Church's leadership structure and connectivity was developing (organically, not by the will of any one person of group), the Church was also able to informally develop a common canon of authoritative scripture with remarkable levels of agreement regarding its contents.

Following Trajan's persecutions there some cracks in the unity of the Church began to develop.  That these developments became more acute following the embrace of Christianity by Constantine and the Church's quick turn from being a persecuted minority to having the world's most powerful man as a benefactor is noteworthy.  How much of a factor acquiring power in this world was on straining Church unity is open for debate, that it had a negative impact is not.  Following Trajan's persecutions Christians in North Africa who had refused to denounce their faith in the face of persecution, refused to allow 'lapsed' Christians who had done so to save their lives to return to fellowship without the express forgiveness of a bishop.  This led to what is called the Donatist Controversy involving rival claimants to be the rightful bishop, an argument that Saint Augustine joined on the side of those advocating amnesty for those who had renounced out of fear.  After Constantine's embrace of Christianity, Augustine approved of using Imperial troops to force the Donatists to rejoin the 'rightful' Church.  The effort failed, and the Church in North Africa remained divided until the region was conquered by Islamic armies nearly four centuries later.  Localized rifts like that of the Donatists aside, the Church remained a remarkably unified organization, and despite a growing East/West divergence (cultural more than theological) it remains one unit until the Great Schism's dual excommunications by the Roman Pope and Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054.  Thus for the first thousand years of its existence, for the vast majority of its adherents, the Church was functionally and technically one.  Remember that this period saw not only the break-up of Rome which led to generations of chaos, but also the rise of a massive external threat from Islam which threatened both East and West alike.  Given how far and wide the Church spread in its first 1,000 years, and the massive disruptions it faced, that unity lasted as long as it did, and functioned as well as it did, seems rather evidence of divine guidance and mercy than of human failing for the schism that eventually occurred.

2. The acceptance of the Nicene Creed (the triumph of the trinitarian viewpoint)

The development of trinitarian orthodoxy, and with it the complex questions of the dual nature of Jesus as both God and Man, certainly seems like an area where a disunited Church would have faltered and fractured.  The discussions among theologians were both deep and technical, opinions were deeply held, and there was the added confusion of translations of theological terms between Greek and Latin to contend with.  In the end, however, the vast majority of the Church, both ancient and modern, has been and continues to be in full agreement with the decisions of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) which led to the nearly universally accepted and acclaimed Nicene Creed, which with the exception of three words added later in the West, holds to this day for Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians.  Thus even in that great three-way divide, there remains unity of belief about the most essential questions of the nature of God.  Were there some who refused to accept Nicaea's dictates?  Yes, but statistically a small minority that grew smaller over time.  There remain some who reprise the heresy of Arius, notably the Jehovah's Witnesses fit this bill, but they, like the Mormons who also askew trinitarian belief, are not properly a part of the Church and thus fall outside the scope of Jesus prayer for unity among his followers (they also constitute less than 1% of those claiming to be Christians in our world today).

3. The triumph of the Gospel's emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus

This may seem to be a given, but when Jesus prayed for unity among his future followers he had not yet gone to the Cross.  That his future followers would universally proclaim that the foundation of their belief was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a death he entered into willingly on their behalf, is a remarkable level of consistency.  Down through the centuries, when other issues drove a wedge between Catholic and Orthodox, and later between Protestant and Catholic, no significant portion of anything that could be called the universal Church has embraced any other aspect of the life of Jesus as the cornerstone of their faith, nor has any significant portion of the Church attempted to replace Jesus with any other Savior.  It may seem like a stretch to consider adherence to Jesus and his work on the Cross as a mark of unity, for we take that belief as a given among anyone who follows Jesus, but who is to say that this outcome had to be?  As the Gospel spread throughout the world, and new peoples, cultures, and languages were added to the great diversity of the Church, the focus on Jesus Christ and his sacrifice remained front and center.  While Christians across time and cultures would have difficulty understanding each other, they would have common ground on the one thing that brings that matters most: Jesus Christ died to save sinners who have faith in him.

4. The healing of schism's animosity has begun

While it is unlikely (and unnecessary) that the Church will again be one ecclesiastical unit with all roads leading to a common human leadership, it has been remarkable how much healing has taken place in recent history of both the Great Schism (now 1,000 years old) and the Protestant/Catholic divide (now 500 years old).  It would have seemed unlikely, even 100 years ago, but in 1965 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I formally withdrew their predecessors' excommunications.  In the decades that followed, ongoing outreach between Orthodox and Catholic Christians have continued.  Likewise, the Second Vatican Council (known as Vatican II, 1962-65) saw the formal adoption by the Vatican of recognition that God is working with his Church beyond Catholicism, that true followers of Jesus are to be found in the Protestant and Orthodox churches.  

In the end, my answer to the question of whether or not God answered Jesus' prayer for unity is as personal as it is historical.  I serve an American Baptist Church as an ordained Baptist minister.  Baptists are famous for being separatists, for being willing to disfellowship each other over things as minor as the use of a guitar in worship (how dare they!!), but here in Franklin, PA where I serve that history seems to matter very little.  We have a ecumenical county-wide ministerium that organizes joint worship each year on Palm Sunday and the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  Those services are attended by Christians representing, on average, thirty churches from nearly a dozen denominations.  Our differences and peculiarities are nowhere near anyone's minds as we worship, pray, and fellowship together.  Similarly, I am the President of Mustard Seed Missions, a para-church ministry supported by volunteers and donations from dozens of area churches, and throughout our ten years of existence helping for than 5,000 clients we have never encountered an issue that was a stumbling block because of the differences between Methodist and Lutherans, or Catholics and Brethren.  The mission of helping others in the name of Christ overshadows the things we do and believe that are different.  The more recent Emmaus Haven, whose building renovations Mustard Seed Missions had a large hand in making happen, also has the same ecumenical history and support.

Did the Father answer Jesus' prayer for unity?  Yes he did.  It may not always look like what we would expect unity to look like, and it hasn't always been supported by people claiming to be Christians (some genuine, some not), but it has endured, and in our world today it is once more gaining momentum. 

My thirty year journey away from Rush Limbaugh

 

As a public persona, Rush Limbaugh changed very little in the last thirty years, his philosophy regarding government, animosity toward political opponents, and bombastic style was rather constant despite the significant changes that occurred in America from the early 1990's until the present.  Rush Limbaugh didn't change very much, but I did.

Picture it: 1991, a high school sophomore, 16, listens to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, lives in a small rural town that is almost entirely white, attends church three times a week at an independent Baptist church, and begins to be involved in a weekly student led bible study at a teacher's home that will continue through high school when he begins to lead the group while in college.  That skinny kid, smart but arrogant, quick with a retort as a defense mechanism, steeped in bible knowledge, but light on biblical wisdom, loved Limbaugh's passion and humor.  He laughed at the feminists (he didn't know any), had high hopes for the power of politics to change things for the better, and flirted with the idea of majoring in political science and making a career out of his own hopes for America's future.

Icing my knees in 92 or 93 after a run at the Sanford home where our bible study was held

What changed?  First of all, I didn't major in political science, I realized that two major things would stand in the way of a career in politics: I hated asking for money, and I had no penchant for dissembling.  The other factor was the bible study that I mentioned previously.  Beginning my sophomore year, myself and a group of fellow students that grew to over twenty met weekly at the home of Mrs. Sanford, our Advanced English teacher, to do a verse by verse study of the bible.  We didn't use prepared materials, we simply read a verse and people commented upon it.  Because of my background in Sunday school, junior church, youth group, 5 day clubs, and especially AWANA, I had more bible knowledge than most, and became one of the regular commentators in our group.  I probably talked more than anyone else during our hour each week, that's sounds like me.  It was through that group that my eyes began to open to the possibility of ministry as a career, a calling.  Eventually, I called my pastor, James Frank, and told him that I felt called to be a pastor.  At this point, I was very conservative in my politics, although I had suffered my first disillusionment about the whole business when I voted for the losing candidate in the 1992 presidential election (on my 18th birthday), and I still listened to and enjoyed Rush Limbaugh, I even had both of his books.

One incident that happened at Bible study sticks with me, although at the time it didn't have much of an impact upon my thinking.  We were reading Galatians 1:8, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!  and like normal, I shared my viewpoint on the meaning of the text.  Unbeknownst to me, there was a Catholic student in our group, and after I proceeded to excoriate the Catholic Church for perverting the Gospel (a very typical independent Baptist viewpoint: see John MacArthur, James White, or Steven Anderson) Mrs. Sanford took me aside and informed me that my words could have hurt that other student.  But I was 18, and I knew everything, I brushed it off, my mind was firm.  Looking back on it, I wish I had listened to her, but I'm not surprised that I didn't.  I really only knew one family that was Catholic, who had a daughter in my grade who was one of my friends, and almost every Christian I knew belonged to an independent church because they were the only ones that our church 'fellowshipped' with.  My horizons were narrow, indeed.

Things began to change, although I was still listening to Limbaugh regularly, when I arrived at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Not because the school was liberal by any means, all of its faculty were Baptists, and when I first arrived it was still against school policy for students to go the movies (something I had enjoyed since my mom took me to see the Dark Crystal when I was 6, fortunately those scars healed).  It was only years later that I found out that Cornerstone was pesona non grata to many from the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARB) or the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA).  How did my education at Cornerstone begin to change my attitude toward Rush Limbaugh?  The first thing that it did was expose me to the reality of diversity within Christian history, theology, and the Church today.  New books, new authors, new arguments and viewpoints, even when you yourself don't change what you believe very much, your eyes begin to open to the possibility that God could be working with/through Christians whose backgrounds and attitudes differ significantly.  At Cornerstone I had amazing professors, they were all conservative by any broad definition regarding theology, culture, and politics, but they were committed to teaching their students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.  It was a profound attitude, and a gift from God.

So there I was at Cornerstone, working toward a degree in religion, with a minor in philosophy, more interested in the kingdom of God than the kingdoms of men, and inching away from the certainty and antagonism of Rush Limbaugh.  I listened less, I was annoyed more often, but the space between his certainty and my budding realization that other perspectives could honor and please God was not yet very wide.

Two things happened during my senior year in college that moved me further down the path to where I am today.  The first was a month spent in Guatemala on a cross-cultural missions trip, and it was indeed an eye opening experience on many levels.  The second was the ending of a year and a half's relationship with my college girlfriend, Elizabeth.  She and I had similar backgrounds, being raised in Baptist Churches and attending conservative Christian schools (she went to Cedarville in Ohio).  Whatever path the two of us might have trod together, it was not the same one I'm on now.

The kids who came to our program at Dios Es Amor Church in Chichicastenango, Guatemala

While at Cornerstone, I also saw a glimpse of ministry being done in a way that transcended politics in the person of Ed Dobson.  Not the Focus on the Family Ed Dobson, but the Blinded by Might Ed Dobson, the pastor of Calvary Church whose mega church (before mega churches were everywhere) neighbored the campus of Cornerstone.  Pastor Dobson, who went home to glory in 2015 after a courageous battle with ALS, impacted me, although the closest we came to meeting was me sitting in his congregation listening to him preach a couple times.  {I highly recommend his The Year of Living Like Jesus, it is very powerful and touches on some of the themes I'm trying to elucidate here}

After graduating from Cornerstone, I made the momentous decision to seek real-world experience for my resume before continuing on with Seminary training; it was choosing the hard road, though I didn't know it.  It did have an impact on my journey away from the politics-centric certainty of Limbaugh because it eventually brought me to both Caledonia United Methodist Church and Oakview Reformed Church, where I worked as a youth pastor/leader for about a year and six months, respectively.  It was another step away from a narrowly defined Church toward one that more faithfully encompasses the breadth of God's grace in our world

While working at Caledonia UMC and living in Grand Rapids, I met a soon-to-be Calvin College graduate and future teacher, Suzanne, who ended up moving back home to Minneapolis, MN after we had dated a few times.  She found work at a school there, and I considered moving to MN to see if the relationship had long-term potential, but I was stymied by the MN director of GARB because he was unwilling to help a graduate of Cornerstone find work at one of their churches because of how 'liberal' the school was.  Flabbergasted at this, and without means of finding work in MN, I remained in MI and continued working as a substitute teacher while trying to secure a more than part-time ministry position.

During this time of transition in 1999, I met the woman who would truly bend the direction that my life was heading, my future wife, Nicole Brzezinski.  Nicole, in addition to being a free spirit, was (and is) a devout Catholic.  At first, neither of us considered our relationship to be anything more than a friendship, because we couldn't see how any romantic relationship would have a future.  As friendships among 20 somethings sometimes go, we found ourselves together, wondering what to do next.

How could I hope to find work at a Baptist church as a pastor if I brought along with me a Catholic wife?  How could we get married if I didn't have a full-time job?  Life's questions were paramount at the time, politics was far from my mind, and I no longer listened to Rush Limbaugh.  Eventually, Nicole and I made our commitment to each other, and were married at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church on June 30th, 2001.  

My future as a pastor seemed unlikely, work was not to be found, so I took the few classes I needed to obtain a teaching certification in Social Studies and English, and found work at an unlikely place: Portland Adult and Community Education.  This began a ten year stint there that was as much of an eye opening experience for me as my month in Guatemala.  Guatemala had shown me the reality of Third World poverty and a church operating faithfully in a significantly different culture from my own; working at P.A.C.E introduced me to students with backgrounds and experiences that had been all around me growing up in rural Ionia County, but outside of my limited church/nerd/runners social circle.  It had always been taken as a given by the philosophy of Rush Limbaugh (inspired by Ayn Rand: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand: Hatred of the authority of God) that America's greatness was due in large part to 'rugged individualism' and those who had 'pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps'.  At P.A.C.E. I saw generational poverty firsthand, learned what it was like for my students to have none of the support system that I was blessed with growing up, but instead to need to overcome the presence of drugs and violence in their lives in order to reach for a high school diploma.  Life was not as simple and people were not as easily categorized, as the pundits would have us believe.  People, experience was teaching me, are not wholly responsible for their own 'success' or 'failure' in life; individualism is not the panacea.

Five years into my teaching tenure at P.A.C.E. I was invited to preach at the First Baptist Church of Palo, MI.  The next Sunday I was offered the position of pastor to this small, very rural, congregation.  I was there for five years, learning on the job.  It was at Palo that I was ordained, although one of the local ministers that I asked to sit on my ordination council abstained from voting in favor because he was unaware when the process began that I had a Catholic wife.  I was happy at P.A.C.E. and at Palo, but I needed full-time ministry, and additionally neither position had benefits like health insurance.

Nicole and I struggled during the ten years that I worked at P.A.C.E (five of which I was also at 1st Baptist of Palo), we couldn't keep our heads above water financially, even though our home was a modest one, and when Nicole's health necessitated the end of her 10 years of teaching high school English, we lost our health insurance as well.  The school board at Portland didn't consider the P.A.C.E teachers to be worthy of the same pay as other teachers (we made only 1/2 as much), and didn't provide any benefits.  My dad worked for Amway for 44 years and that company had treated him well, he was never out of work, and even though we were far from rich, we didn't struggle nearly as much as many others.  If not for the kindness of my parents in offering us assistance, we would have lost our house during those hard years after Nicole quit teaching.  I was working three jobs, but we barely could pay our monthly bills.  If this could happen to the guy voted 'most likely to succeed' who graduated Summa Cum Laude from college, it was further proof that 'rugged individualism' wasn't the whole answer.  Our personal struggles opened my eyes further to the needs of those around us, to the structural causes of poverty, and questions about how the Church should respond.

Nicole's Catholicism prevented us from receiving offers from a number of churches, one in Indiana and one in New York both in the fall of 2011.  It was heartbreaking, and tearful questions of 'why?' abounded.  Thankfully, not every church felt that way.  When I told the search committee of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA that my wife was Catholic, they were unfazed.  We moved here at the start of 2012 with a new 'lease on life', it was a much needed turn for the better.

Western PA is very similar to western MI, but with one significant difference: Baptists and independent bible churches are a small minority (and there are few Reformed Churches), and those churches that are here have a much more ecumenical attitude toward each other.  Here in Venango County we joke that you can't throw a stick without hitting a Methodist Church (mostly UMC, but Free Methodist too).  In fact, across the corner from our church is First UMC, and halfway down the block is Christ UMC.  In response to my choice to move forward with Nicole I had researched and written a 'book' about the ecumenism of 1 John {Christianity's Big Tent: The Ecumenism of 1 John} while we lived in MI, but here in Franklin I saw the reality of that thesis in practice.  What was the thesis?  According to the Apostle John, there are three tests of faith/fellowship that determine if someone is a genuine Christian: (1) Do they acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? (2) Do they have genuine love for fellow Christians? And (3), do they 'Walk in the light', that is, live righteously?  That's it.  That's the whole list.  Nothing about baptism or communion, nothing about church polity, and absolutely nothing about politics.  Here in Franklin I began working with committed and God-honoring Christians who were Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Christian Missionary Alliance, Church of God, and on and on.  The narrow, us vs. them mentality of my youth, and the certainty with which I responded to Mrs. Sanford's attempt to pour cold water on my self-righteous zeal, were long gone.  Here was a community that did not agree on many minor things, but were able to work together because they agree on one very important thing: Jesus.

Somewhere along this journey, between college and moving to Franklin in 2012, my attitude toward Rush Limbaugh soured more than just no longer listening to him or others like him, hyper-partisan punditry began to show itself to me to be a part of the problem, not the solution.  In the fall of 2012, having been in Franklin mere months, I became involved in the effort that would lead shortly to the creation of Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County, an ecumenical para-church charity focused on helping the 'least of these' in our community in partnership with our county's Human Services Department.  I've been the President of Mustad Seed Missions since its inception, and we've helped over 1,500 families without a drop of partisanship, replacing it entirely by building relationships within the organization, with the partners we work with, and the clients we help.  The Culture Wars didn't create MSM, ecumenism and compassion for those in need did.  In other words, it was the Church being the Church, serving the Kingdom of God, not fighting for control of the kingdoms of men.

In the years since the founding of MSM, we also began in our community a homeless shelter, Emmaus Haven, also built upon ecumenism, community support, and partnerships with the local government.  This was yet another step away from the philosophy of Rush Limbaugh, as both of these organizations have demonstrated in concrete terms that the government need not be the enemy, and that poverty isn't simply a matter of people not working hard enough.

Thirty years ago Rush Limbaugh was much the same as he was in 2021, the year of his death.  I was a lot like him in attitude and philosophy back then, but see very little that we might have had in common anymore.  He didn't change much, but I did.  How?  Why?  It was a journey of education, maturity, and discipleship, but mostly it was the 'school of life' teaching me humility and compassion through my own struggles, teaching me ecumenism and cooperation through my marriage and my ministry.  It was, I believe, in the end, the journey that God wanted me to take, the person he wanted me to become, it was like so much else, God's grace.

See Also: "You do you, I'll do me" - Quintessentially American, but incompatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview which touches upon both Rush Limbaugh and Ayn Rand.

And, Pope Francis' views on capitalism and Rush Limbaugh which was the proverbial 'straw that broke the camel's back'.

Sermon Video: Five loaves and two fish - Mark 6:30-44

 Instead of finding rest in a solitary place, Jesus and the disciples are met with a large crowd.  Jesus has compassion on them and teaches them, but when the disciples observe that the people need food, Jesus says, "You give them something to eat."  HOW?  They can't solve this problem, but Jesus still asks them to try, to asses their resources, and then uses their small contribution (5 loaves and 2 fish), blesses it, and then has the disciples be the one to pass out the food to the crowd.

What is our lesson in all this?  19th century missionary William Carey said it best, "Expect great things from God.  Attempt great things for God."

Sermon Video: Work together for the truth - 3 John 1-8

Continuing the themes from 2 John, the Apostle commends a leader from a church that he is connected with named Gaius for his devotion to the hospitality that was necessary in the 1st century Church to support the traveling missionaries and teachers of the first generation Church.  In doing so, John calls attention to the need for building relationships between churches, for each church to assist the Missions effort, and for churches to work together for the common goal of supporting the truth (i.e. the Gospel).  With that in mind, this message considers, and encourages, the partnerships that 1st Baptist has with denominational entities (ABCUSA, International Missions, ABCOPAD), national/regional ministries (The Gideons, Youth For Christ, Child Evangelism Fellowship), county-wide organizations (Venango County Christian Ministerium, Mustard Seed Missions, Emmaus Haven, ABC Life Center), and finally local Franklin efforts (the Central Help Fund, Shepherd's Green Food Pantry, Franklin Ministerium {cross-walk, Good Friday Service, 4th of July service}).  By participating in, and actively supporting, these efforts, the people of 1st Baptist can multiply their effort, increasing the impact of our congregation for the work of the Kingdom of God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Local newspapers are dying: to the detriment of education, democracy, and the Church

My first job was delivering the Grand Rapids Press {Grand Rapids, MI}.  Five days a week I delivered about 16 papers after school, on Saturday I got up early to deliver the same number, and on Sunday my father drove my brother and I to deliver our whole route together before church {our little sister delivered 6 papers on the other days, but not Sunday morning, that was for the older kids}.  My whole life I have been an avid newspaper reader, maintaining a habit I learned from my grandmother, I read all my old newspapers in order when I return from vacation {Yes, it is emotionally satisfying to do so}.  When I moved here to Franklin, PA in 2012, I discovered pleasantly that our community has an excellent local newspaper: the combined The Derrick / The News-Herald {Oil City - Franklin}.  We are fortunate.  According to this AP news story: Decline in readers, ads leads hundreds of newspapers to fold , over the past fifteen years, 1,400 cities and towns in America have had their local newspaper close up shop, circulation of newspapers in America has declined every year for three decades, and ad revenue has fallen dramatically since 2006 {Meanwhile, Facebook's ad revenue for 2018 was $55 billion}.  It should be obvious that losing our local newspaper would be detrimental to our schools and government, denying us a source of both encouraging and uplifting news and awareness of potential or growing problems.  What may not be readily apparent to everyone is the harm that would befall the Church in Venango County without The Derrick / The News-Herald.
The first significant initiative with which I became involved as the new pastor in town was the Children's Roundtable.  In the fall of 2012, those meetings led to the formation of the exploratory committee which became Mustard Seed Missions.  How did we let people know that we were holding a public meeting about helping those in need in our midst, which several of our current board members {still helping out 7 years later} attended?  We told the local religion reporter and the paper printed an article.  Since its inception, Mustard Seed Missions has received incredible coverage in the newspaper, boosting both our quantity of volunteers and our donations.
The effort to open, and now expand, a homeless shelter in Venango County, now headed up by Emmaus Haven, was also greatly helped by articles in the newspaper highlighting our efforts as a Church community.  In both of these ecumenical ministry efforts, the coverage has been both positive and accurate, a testament to the reporters and editors of our local newspaper.  Would we have been able to successfully launch either of these non-denominational para-church charities without the boost of articles from the newspaper?
In addition, we have a weekly religion page in the Saturday edition of the newspaper, featuring rotating commentary by local ministers, articles about what is happening here in the Church {such as Nicole's Fairy Enchanted Evening fundraiser}, and announcements about upcoming church events and efforts {free of charge, a gift to the community}.
It would be a massive blow to Venango County if The Derrick / The News-Herald were to close at some point in the future.  I know that some of the profit/loss issues facing print media in general are far beyond the control of a small market like this one.  But I also know that there are enough people here in Venango County, enough businesses, enough civic organizations, and yes, enough churches, to keep our excellent newspaper going through our subscriptions, purchases of ads, and cooperation with, and encouragement of, the reports, editors, and staff who publish our local newspaper.  As the AP story says, "Local journalism is dying in plain sight", but it won't here if we offer our ongoing support to one of the freedom's enshrined in our Bill of Rights, our local newspaper.

{As you probably know, my blog has no ads, it earns me no money, nor have I used it before to advocate for any business venture.  Supporting the newspaper of my community, which in the ways I described above, in turn supports the church which I serve, is an exception to my own rule; thank you.}

Homelessness is a real issue in Venango County

At last month's zoning board meeting in Oil City, which ended in the decision being tabled until this month, a claim was made by one official who was called to testify that there isn't a homelessness problem in Oil City.  This assertion was met with gasps by many of the clergy present because of our ample experience with those who are either homeless or in danger of soon being homeless.  Whatever is decided at this month's meeting about this particular location in Oil City, the need for a shelter (whether one sizable one, or several smaller locations) will remain.  How do I know this?  In the past two years, the Bridge House Transitional Housing Program (that is, Emmaus Haven) here in Franklin has had 47 people stay at their facility, out of a total of 88 people who were referred to the program (which means 41 people were unable to stay, and need accommodations elsewhere).  During the past two years, a three apartment house in Franklin that was renovated by Mustard Seed Missions, in cooperation with Venango County's Human Services Department, has had 50 families in residence as a transitional home until more permanent housing could be found.  In addition, the Human Services Department is currently averaging 97 calls per month from families or individuals who are either currently homeless or in need of financial assistance to prevent being made homeless.
Urban communities and counties are not the only places where homelessness occurs in America.  Venango County is a rural community, with two small towns and no major urban area within an hour's drive, let alone within its boundaries.  And yet, homelessness is here, just as is poverty, drug abuse, and violence.  The problems of fallen humanity are not limited to certain areas, or certain kinds of people (because "kinds of people" don't actually exist; just human beings), they exist everywhere.  To pretend that some of the ills of our society are not present here, that we don't need to respond to them, is to do a disservice to those in need, our fellow human beings, and fellow Americans.
Homelessness is a real issue in Venango County, not wanting to believe it doesn't make it go away.  Whatever happens with this particular site in Oil City, the churches of Venango County will continue to work toward solutions to the problems of the people of this community, for it is our calling, our mission, our response to the grace of God given to us.

** Update ** As of 2/19, the Oil City zoning board has approved the use of the building in Siverly as the group home for Emmaus Haven.  The next step is to purchase the building from the Diocese of Erie, finalize plans for the renovations, gather the necessary funds, and begin work.  No timeline is yet available for when the facility will be up and running.

Strong Church support shown for local homeless shelter

Last night's zoning board meeting in Oil City highlighted the significant support being given to Emmaus Haven by the local Church, as evidenced by the more than a dozen ministers and other church workers in attendance.  After nearly three hours, the issue was tabled until next month after the discussion by the board revealed several issues needing legal clarity prior to a ruling.  As you can tell by my comments that were quoted in the newspaper article (The Derrick/New-Herald once again doing a stellar job of covering local news), the primary assertion that those who were there to support the shelter took issue with was the idea that Venango County doesn't have a problem with homelessness (not an assertion made by the board itself, the article explains who made that claim).  Having served this community over seven years, and having been involved for over six years with Mustard Seed Missions, I can categorically state that the problem is indeed real, it is local, and it isn't going to be mitigated without a significant effort.  In 2016, Emmaus Haven, with Mustard Seed Mission's help, opened a 6 bed facility in Franklin.  That transitional housing unit has been full since its inception, helping 47 individuals, 31 of which now have permanent housing.  While this has been a tremendous asset to those seeking to help with housing needs in our community, the problem is clearly bigger than can be resolved with only space for six people.  If the Oil City zoning board ultimately denies Emmaus Haven the ability to operate a larger shelter at this location in Siverly, the need to help the homeless won't go away, nor will the Church's commitment to being instrumental in its solution.  No matter what happens next month, churches here in Venango County are moving forward, thankfully with great partners like the Human Services Department of Venango County.

We need a homeless shelter, and the Church needs to support it

There is an article in today's News Herald/Derrick newspaper about the upcoming zoning hearing in Oil City regarding the transformation of the former fellowship hall of the Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church in Siverly.  The article mentions that the organization trying to create this shelter is Emmaus Haven of Venango County, and that they already operate a facility (6 bed) in Franklin that was renovated by  Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County.  As the President of Mustard Seed Missions, and one of the people who helped organize what became Emmaus Haven, I can confirm from my own experience in these roles and as the pastor of 1st Baptist of Franklin that our county very much remains in need of a homeless shelter.
There are those in our county who believe, erroneously, that we don't have a homeless problem here in our rural county of only 50k people.  They are, unfortunately, wrong in that assessment.  Emmaus Haven has operated the shelter (in cooperation with Venango County Housing) since 2016, and it has been at capacity ever since.  How do I know this?  In addition to reports from the leadership of Emmaus Haven, I have on numerous occasions tried to help a homeless person sitting here in my office, standing on my porch, or calling me on the phone, only to discover that the shelter is currently full.  If someone is telling you that Venango County doesn't have indigenous people suffering from homelessness, in other words, that the only homeless are outsiders (and hence evidently less of our problem), they're wrong, very wrong.  We may not have the chronic homelessness visible on the streets of Pittsburgh, but each day in our county there are individuals, and families, without shelter for the coming night, I know it to be true, they come to me for help.
Which leads to the second half of the equation: our obligation to be a part of meeting this real need.  As followers of Jesus Christ, servants of the kingdom of God, we have a clear and abiding mandate from Jesus to help those in need whenever, and wherever we can.  Each person that we encounter that is in need is a human being made in the image of God, a person of worth beyond measure, and one for whom Jesus Christ was willing to die, just as he was for us.  To turn our backs on the homeless, whether through indifference, racism, or some other reasons to dismiss this need, is to fail to be the Church that God has called us to be.  We may not be able to solve a problem like homelessness, but we had better be a part of the effort to try.
When this new facility in Siverly opens, it will give Emmaus Haven and the County the flexibility it needs to handle both short and medium term housing problems, bringing into play resources that ten years ago would have seemed beyond our reach as a community.  In this we have had willing partners, the hard work of volunteers, and the grace of God.

Do Christians really need to care about those in need?  Read the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, and then get back to me on that one.

Matthew 25:31-46 New International Version (NIV)
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Pastoral ministry, Apologetics, and Optimism for the Church

One of the things that I sometimes do while working at my desk during the week is listen to Dr. James White's online program The Diving Line from Alpha and Omega Ministries.  These Youtube videos often deal with topics that interest me, in particular Biblical textual issues.  One of the things that I have noticed of late, is that Dr. White's perspective, as an apologist who spends a lot of his time debating, is as a result at times negative about the state of the Church today.  When you spend all of your time and effort combating error and heresy within the Church, and fending off assault from those who are supposed to be on your side, as well as those who are not, it is no wonder that Dr. White doesn't get the chance to see the positive things that are happening in the Church that I have the good fortune of witnesses on a regular basis as I go about pastoral ministry here in my little corner of the world.
It may be that there is theological rot in many of the seminaries, some of which have wandered away from Orthodoxy, but here on the local level, at least in my own experience working with the 50+ churches that we've come into contact with through Mustard Seed Missions, I've only worked with men and women who are preaching, teaching, and living the same Gospel message as our ancestors in the faith.  If certain denominations are heading into danger, and that's something an apologist like Dr. White should be focusing on, that same trend is not evident here on the local level.  Working here in Venango County these past four and a half years, has given me a tremendous optimism about the work that God is doing, an optimism that stems from our ecumenical work for the poor through Mustard Seed Missions, as well as the food pantries, the cross walk, the 40 Days of Prayer, and all the other ways in which God's people here in this place have been working hard for the kingdom of God.
Just today as I listened to yesterday's program while working on my PowerPoint for Sunday, James expressed some of his own frustration after spending the first 45 minutes talking about some of the struggles the Church is facing by those who are wandering from orthodoxy, he said, "And I know in my  mind, God is still on is throne, I'm only seeing a small portion of it.  We've seen all sorts of people brought out of error...I know all that, sometimes you just start getting tired."  After that, Dr. White commented that he takes a long ride on his bike to help clear his mind of the weight he feels on his shoulders when fighting day after day on these issues, a sentiment that I can wholeheartedly agree with (for me, it is running on our awesome running trails in the woods at Two Mile or Oil Creek State Park).
I know that a lot of you are worried about the future, about the future of our nation, and the future of God's Church here.  There are things worth worrying about, trends that need to be countered, battles that must be won.  When that fight ways heavy on your mind, the antidote that I have found may offer you solace.  Find your fellow Christians who have a passion for those in need, and get busy doing something to help in the name of Christ, and get together with your neighboring churches to worship together.  You're not in this alone, and neither is your church.  God has brought revival to this nation through his Church before, he can do it again.  Instead of waiting around for that to happen, get started on kingdom work today, who knows, you may end up being a part of how God turns that blessing of revival into a reality.

{Update 11/21  The James White that I used to listen to while working no longer has the same ministry.  In the past 3-4 years he has followed Eric Metaxas down the road of political 'sky is falling' conspiracy theory laden hysteria.  I no longer recommend listening to his messages with the exception of the older material related to textual criticism}

Help that really helps people

                “Give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.”  As someone who has enjoyed fishing over the years, I know I haven’t often been fed by it, but the principle as it applies to the Church’s charity work for the poor is valid.  Whenever we can, we should be eager to help in ways that enable those who receive our help to be able to help themselves in the future.  In things such as disaster relief, the immediate need takes precedence as it should, but if we let it, every need will look like a crisis situation, whether it be a food, shelter, or clothing that we’re helping with, and the cycle of poverty that is at the root of the need will never be addressed.  How can the Church help break the generational poverty that afflicts so many of the people that our charity efforts are aimed at?  Relationships.  The importance of relationships is why the last step of every client helped by Mustard Seed Missions is their referral to a church in their neighborhood whose mission it is to follow up on what we have started.  The Church needs to be the extended support system that is so desperately needed by those struggling with poverty.  If we’re going to build relationships, we need to be prepared to go above and beyond the simpler tasks of filling needs, and embrace along with it the task of building friendships.  Those who are poor need to feel welcome in our churches, and they need to be treated like family.  When this is our attitude, both meeting needs and being a friend, Gospel seeds will surely grow.

"No Earthly Good", in defense of Ecumenism

I recently experienced my first significant resistance to our efforts through Mustard Seed Missions to work ecumenically to help the needy.  Thankfully, this opposition did not come from anyone in my church, or even anyone here in our community or in one of the forty churches we partner with.  The objection to the work of Mustard Seed Missions came from people who had no direct knowledge of our work, but rather only an objection to the principle of ecumenism, in most of its forms, regardless of its application in our case and without any first-hand, or even second-hand knowledge of what it is that we actually do for people here in Venango County in the name of Christ.

It did of course bother me somewhat, and sadden me, to know that sincere Christians would object to a ministry that has brought so much hope and brotherly love not only to our clients but to our churches, but it didn’t really surprise me.  There is a long standing tradition in Church history of choosing principles over people in the sense that the people involved are considered to be casualties of the need to hold on tightly to principles and therefore such casualties are regrettable but not avoidable.  As I pondered this situation this morning I was reminded of a song that I knew as a kid that was covered by the Oak Ridge Boys but originally written and sung by Johnny Cash, “No earthly good”.  A portion of the third verse speaks to this point: “If you're holdin' heaven then spread it around, There are hungry hands reaching up here from the ground, Move over and share the high ground where you stood, So heavenly minded and you're no earthly good”.

Principles are an important thing, the fundamentals of the Christian faith are an essential part of what defines us that we cannot afford to lose.  That being said, the fractured and varied Church that exists today is the reality with which we must work.  In an ideal world, there would only be one Church, all in doctrinal agreement and all correctly following the Word of God.  In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t an ideal world.  We have two primary choices then as we face the reality of the divisions within the Church of Jesus Christ: #1 Build a wall around our church to avoid the “corrupting” influence of the theology of churches that we object to and only work with completely like-minded people for the kingdom of God #2 Work with all of our sister churches for the sake of the lost even though we have important differences in our theology.

As someone who grew up enjoying the hard-nosed theology of the Apostle Paul, I can see the appeal of taking a stand on principle, but the words of Jesus Christ compel me forward, “whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  In a world of darkness, I choose to seek out other lights that shine besides my own, together we will shine brighter as we share the light of Jesus Christ.

Who is responsible for the poor?

Whose responsibility is it to help the poor, the government or the Church?  Prior to the Industrial Revolution the answer was the Church by default, nobody else had the resources to help much, even if the various kings or emperors had wanted to.  After Constantine, the Church had grown in influence, wealth, and power, eventually receiving tithes in the forms of taxes and taking on the responsibility to help the destitute.  After the French Revolution, that arrangement began to change, modern constitutional governments were more efficient and the horrors of Dickensian working conditions in overcrowded cities cried out for universal protections against misfortune.  By the time of the New Deal and Great Society, the Church had taken on a much smaller role in poverty relief, relegated to running the occasional shelter or food pantry, organizing disaster relief, perhaps helping out with an electrical bill or overdue rent. 

                But what if the answer to the question of helping fight poverty wasn’t either the government or the Church, but instead the government working in cooperation with the Church?  What if government could tap into the willingness of faith inspired volunteers to help their fellow man, and the churches could tap into the resources of government for help with financing and administering that volunteer spirit?  It would take a degree of trust from both parties.  The government would have to understand that fighting poverty requires a spiritual element alongside all the others in order to find long-term success, and the churches would have to understand that their call to make disciples is best fulfilled when real help in the name of Jesus Christ is included.

                This isn’t just a hypothetical, it has been tried with success in a variety of places and circumstances, recently here in Western Pennsylvania where the Human Services Department of Venango County has partnered with dozens of churches to work together to help the most vulnerable living amongst us.  The resulting leap of faith created Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County, a non-denominational para-church organization which in two years has helped nearly 300 clients by harnessing over 6,000 hours of volunteer labor and multiplying a local government grant, as well as charitable grants and donations from churches and individuals, by at least four-fold.  The answer to poverty isn’t the Church OR the government, the answer begins with trust and cooperation from both of them.

How can a small church make a difference?

How can a small church fulfill its obligation to help the poor when its resources of money and volunteers are limited?  An answer that is often not fully utilized is to partner with other local churches to pool resources.  First Baptist Church of Franklin has been a part of Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County since its founding in 2012, in part because it offers us a chance to make a difference in the lives of far more people than we could ever hope to achieve on our own.  In its first two years, Mustard Seed Missions, a non-denominational para-church ministry, has had over 280 clients referred to it by the Human Services Department of Venango County.  The only reason why this organization can hope to help so many is that it receives both funds and volunteers from dozens of churches throughout the county.  On our own, we can only help a few people, in cooperation with other Baptist churches, we could help a few more, but when we open our minds and hearts to the idea of working with any and every Christian Church in our midst, the work for the kingdom truly multiples beyond our expectations.  How can your church make a difference?  Step One: Stop thinking of it as your church and remember that it’s His Church, and so is the Methodist Church down the street, and the Catholic Church across town, and the Presbyterian Church outside of town…

An article I wrote about Mustard Seed Missions

It was pretty cool to see ABCOPAD (our denominational region, American Baptist Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware) feature an article I wrote about Mustard Seed Missions.  The newsletter goes out to a lot of churches, hopefully this will spur them on to take a chance on inter-church cooperative ministry and also look into what sort of church-government cooperative efforts might be available to help the poor in their area.  We've also recently had the joy of seeing a Mustard Seed inspired effort begin in neighboring Mercer County, and a new one about to start up in another neighboring county, Crawford.  God is good, his people can do awesome things for the kingdom when they work together.

ABCOPAD newsletter

How do you know if a ministry is right for you?

How do you know if a potential ministry opportunity is the right one for you?  As a church pastor, this is a question we need to ask ourselves on a regular basis.  There are plenty of opportunities out there, far more than we have the resources of time, energy, or money to be a part of, so how do we know if the latest idea is one that will really make a difference for the kingdom of God?  The usual answers about talent and passion can be useful guides, after all, few pastors are likely to be much good at trying to be someone they aren’t by tackling a problem where talent is lacking, and most pastors will find it hard to stick with a ministry that doesn’t speak to the passion that drove them to choose to serve the Lord in the first place.  Instead of looking at this from a philosophical or practical viewpoint, let me relate to you the story of how I came to be involved in the para-church ministry that now occupies a great deal of my ministry effort.

            In 2012 I was new to Franklin, Pennsylvania.  I had just moved her in January with my wife, Nicole, from Michigan where I had been a part-time pastor of a small rural church and a part-time alternative education teacher.  The First Baptist Church of Franklin is an established church with a rich history and a beautiful building.  The numbers at First Baptist had dwindled in recent years, but the passion of the people for serving God was still evident to me when I came here to candidate.  When I accepted the job I knew it would be a long-term process of turning things around, but I also knew I would have the support of the congregation to do it.

            In the spring of 2012 I was invited to attend a meeting of the Children’s Roundtable of Venango County, a group consisting of local government officials, civic leaders, and local pastors, by another pastor who was unable to attend this particular meeting.  Not knowing what the focus of this particular group was, other than guessing that it had something to do with Children’s issues, I attended the meeting.  The first meeting was informational for me, learning about some of the local poverty related issues that affect children, but didn’t point toward any particular involvement on my part.  When I attended a second meeting everything changed.

            At the second meeting of the Children’s Roundtable, it was clear that these local government officials and civic leaders were looking to the local churches as a potential source of manpower to help alleviate some of the previously identified problems.  At this meeting, the local CYS solicitor, a good man who I now count as a friend, asked me to speak on behalf of the churches of our county and represent them.  Now keep in mind, I was the junior member of anybody’s ministerium list, still trying to figure out my role in this community, and certainly not anyone with any particular authority to speak for others.  But I was there, and I went with it.

            During the next several months, I became more and more involved in the process of talking about what needs the local churches might be able to help address, and how they would go about doing it.  What started out as a wholly unexpected request to speak on behalf of my fellow pastors, soon saw me become the default leader of the church response and the host of the eventual meeting to share this proposed local government and church cooperative effort.

            When that meeting of about sixty interested people happened, we were covering ground that I had never imagined would be a part of my ministry here at First Baptist.  I do have a history of ecumenical efforts, and this church has its own history of participating in the local food pantry and benevolent fund, but where this was going was far beyond anything that either I or they had attempted before.  The basic premise of the idea that was then forming was to build a partnership between the Human Services Department of Venango County {It had begun as a CYS effort, but quickly grew to include Aging, Mental Health, and all the rest} who would provide the information of their clients who needed help beyond what they could give, and local churches of all denominations throughout our whole county.

            In November of 2012 I led a second meeting to formulate our initial action plan, hoping to find a core group of people from several churches willing to be on a committee to get this lofty idea off the ground.  Once again, I ended up with more than I bargained for.  We did find our core leadership group that night, many of whom are still vital to our organization’s efforts, but we also found something fairly daunting: our first referral.  One of the caseworkers in attendance brought the file of her client who was in need of help, and after getting her permission to share that information, she told us about the significant repairs that this home needed before winter set in.  Before we had a name, before we had an official leadership, we had work to do, and that is what we did.  We helped someone when we were just trying to figure out who we were.  From that day onward, the referrals started to flow in, first slowly, then a trickle, eventually a flood we can barely keep our heads above.

            We eventually settled on the name of, Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County.  It wasn’t a ministry that I went in search of.  The way that it functions today has a lot of my input on it, but the primary idea of government/church cooperation belonged to somebody else.  I had never been much of an administrator, and my teaching days certainly didn’t develop a love of paperwork in me, but when it came time to choose our first president, all eyes were looking at my end of the table.

  Why did I do it, why take on this significant daily burden when I already had a church that needed me?  One reason is that I felt liberated as a full-time pastor from my years of juggling two jobs and I really wanted to make a difference in this community.  A second reason is that I had this strong feeling as the idea began to be formed early in 2012 that it wouldn’t get off the ground if one of the local pastors didn’t adopt it as his own.  Lastly, I just couldn’t say no when I was asked if the churches of our county would be willing to help the poor, if we can’t say yes to that question, what can we say yes to?

How do you know if a ministry is the right one for you?  I’m not sure I have any profound answer to that question from my own experience, but I sure knew that I had found my answer when I agreed to be a part of our para-church, non-denominational, government/church cooperative effort to help the poor in the name of Christ.