Establishing a NEW Christian Culture

We NEED to create a new Christian culture in Georgia. 

There needs to be a place for every type of personality and stage of life to connect in meaningful ways with God's Gospel message in a way that is more than just head knowledge about God. This new culture will STEP ON TOES OF THE RELIGIOUS while at the same time benefitting them so much that they gladly join hands and experience the blessings and growing pains for the Kingdom of God.

IS THERE A PERFECT CHURCH MODEL THAT MEETS EVERY NEED OF EVERY PERSON FROM EVERY WALK OF LIFE in the state of Georgia? 

If you said NO, you're correct. 
Do you want smelly or poorly dressed people in your church on Sunday morning or well dressed and groomed folk? 
Do you want to fellowship with only people who look like you and share your same cultural heritage or do you prefer variety? 
Do you enjoy the highly enthusiastic charismatic expression of love for God or do you prefer the deeply reverent traditional atmosphere?
Do you enjoy a service where pretty much anything could happen or do you prefer predictability?
Does your church focus highly on musical worship? Bible teaching? Humanitarian outreaches? Evangelism? Political involvement? Social activities?
Do you have a hundred different ways to meet needs in your community or more so have 100 needs in your body that need help?
Do you have enough volunteers to look after every 85 year old widow and widower in your church?
Do you have enough youth ministry workers? Child care workers? Street evangelists? College ministry coordinators? 
Is there a sufficient group of people praying for the preacher during every service that The Word is effectively shared to impact lives? 
Do the people in your congregation believe the ministry rests solely on the Pastor & Elders or believe that they are the actual ministers?

In asking these questions, it should be evident that 1000 people are going to say yes and no to different aspects. To my fellow pastors, I ask these not to cause any division, but to illustrate this point: We NEED each other and can co-exist in the same Gospel works together. The things we should have in common is that Jesus Christ came from God to give Himself as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind and was crucified, died, and then came back to live again by His own power and authority; that He now sits at the right Hand of God the Father and will come again to establish His eternal Kingdom which we are eagerly waiting for. So here is where the rubber meets the road.

As I currently walk in more of a street missionary and daily surprise opportunity for the Gospel capacity while I launch Isayah 61, I am quite aware of the variety of new Christian converts that I'd love to find places to help them get discipled locally. That is what the ministry network database will help with. I'm also quite aware that some individuals who sincerely want to love and know God, follow Him, and be renewed with His mind and lifestyle are not in their current state easily congruent with most church environments.
Maybe someone has a crime against a child. Maybe someone needs to go through detox and withdrawals. Maybe someone is dealing with traumas that have external behaviors that need some time to dissipate. Maybe someone is coming from a cult background or occult practices. Maybe they're still addicted.
Maybe it would not be safe for these specific peoples to just come in to just any church fellowship. But is that not the entire goal of The Church?
But wait, there is more...

Maybe 50% of those we reach on the streets have no obvious vice or dysfunction and would absolutely fit into most church fellowships easily. Just as I asked those questions at the top, if 500 successful new converts all be perfect candidates for the local Baptist fellowship? Nope. What about the local Pentecostal Holiness church? Nope. I could go on inserting Lutherans, Methodists, Non-denoms, Bible churches, independent fundamentalist orthodox messianic community church of the true Gospel of the Holy Redeemer (just made it up!), etc. We NEED each other. As a pastor... I'll have to go back and agree with the senior pastor I served under who told me that God puts people into fellowships that are akin to the personality of the pastor over that fellowship. He told me that people like him will come to the church and be best ministered to because he speaks their language. This was in the context of me questioning why he was doing a "gasoline buy-down" outreach 2 miles from the church in the affluent part of town where he lived instead of 1 block away from the church in the blue collar area with the people who might be struggling to pay bills. Well to an extent, he had a point I could not see 25 years ago. (to an extent... but I have not changed my standpoint) As I now have pastored in several environments and currently minister especially to other ministers, I do know that not all of us are comfortable with all types of people we serve. We NEED each other to be exactly the type of pastor and leader and church fellowship that we uniquely are for the whole Body's sake.

I'm going to share a current story. A young man I'll call LP was baptized in my presence last Fall at one of the oldest churches in the county circa 1800s. It looked really good at the start. His heart was on fire for God and he dearly wanted to do amazing things for God. He attempted to start new ministries and lead evangelistic efforts with very little solid foundation under his feet. While visiting this church one morning and seeing him around a month later, I saw him pushing boundaries and trying to get others to go around certain old school established practices of that church body. I tried to help him tone it all down in the moment but I don't think he was around there more than a month later. This church did not have in place a structure to handle new believers. It did not have in place a structure to guide and disciple young adults in a formal sense. Great preaching, great heart for God, great many things... But this young man was presented a new identity and had nothing to give him any definition of how to walk out that new identity practically. He also has somewhat difficult high functioning autistic traits which he is untreated for or maybe being mis-treated for and that needed to be addressed in his discipling as a new believer. To that end, he just wore some people's patience out as it appeared to me from a tangential view. I've actually seen him more recently visiting my church with other friends who have a heart for him. His current lifestyle is that of promoting his alcohol use and other off-color teenage rebellion as he frequently posts on facebook. He is a great example of why we need each other to effectively meet the needs of those who do not fit into our own church's culture or practice. 
Does this church bear any fault for his return to the worldly ways? No. They were operating as best as they knew how. But what if the pastor was connected to some other ministries whom he knew could address the wild stallion personality of LP? Could he have called in another minister who could have taken the young man aside and mentored him in Christ? I hope so. 

The reality is that there are a lot of Christians who will wear out a lot of pastors or ministries. There are a lot of pastors who have enough .. wear and tear over the years that when they see yet another one of those draining type of folk coming their way, they'll find as many excuses to not be a target for that individual. We should be really happy that there are so many flavors of church for everybody. If I was a Presbyterian pastor (I'm going off a stereotype because I married a presbyterian girl) and some new flamboyant believer came in and had a demonstrative and emotive display of worship which was not our denomination's normal model and started to become a distraction from normal service etiquette... and I had a friend from the non-denom mega church down the road, I'd be wanting to introduce that person to my friend and hope they found a more suitable fellowship in their midst. Now, tell me I'm wrong or somehow unique in that relief!!! My heart is not to change a person's natural disposition. My heart is to see lives changed and motivated for the Kingdom of God through intimate relationship with Jesus of Nazareth- Son of God! 

If any of us pastors think that we're going to make a sheep conform to our idea of what a follower of Jesus looks like, we've got something comin! I promise yall that weird sinners are gonna be slightly less weird saints... or in the eyes of the world, super weird Jesus Freaks. I know several kind of annoying people. Its their natural personality from childhood. For some its their coping mechanism. It's the Mary and Martha illustration. It's our favorite disciple Peter. It's in infamous doubting Thomas (who didn't doubt much longer!). It's John, the disciple who loved to talk about himself in the Third Person (the disciple whom Jesus Loved...). It is David dancing before God in his loin-cloth with all his might and then chasing women with all his similar but selfish might. It is Elijah taking a stand seeing God's power and wrath and at the threat of a mad woman a few days later going in to hiding and fear. It is Jonah... It is Eve... It is Job and his 3 friends... Lot's daughters... yeah. That's the people of Earth and those are the people we are going to the highways and byways to BRING IN to our churches... Not all of us can handle all of them. So, be glad that you're losing some members to the mega church down the road. So be glad you're losing members to other bodies of believers. Be glad that your worship leader jumped ship for higher pay elsewhere or because that church had a better online presence which might lead to the recording contract he always dreamed of. YES, I know it's painful and annoying! But God moved the sheep...  He moved them because they would have become a thorn in your body if their needs were not being met over time. He moved them so that they could be utilized differently that in your church. He moved them to protect someone from starting an affair at your church. He moved them so their influence would not corrupt the youth or someone questioning. He moved them because they were in secret sin that only He knew about. He will continue moving His sheep for reasons He knows and we do not. Maybe God will move people who are so gifted that they outshine your ministry and would cause some discouragement later on for you; maybe they would be like my friend LP and then fall away and cause greater confusion in your church. We don't know why God moves sheep. My Bible indicates to me that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and He places people where He chooses. So, can we stop with the fear of sheep stealing? Can we stop with the fear of other denominations leading our sheep away to "false" or "incomplete" doctrines? Can we just stop striving for control of the people of God! 

Let's instead choose to be thankful of our differences. I'll lastly say that when a church or denomination has enough of their own philosophy in their doctrines that they cannot get along with other denominations who base their doctrines on their understandings of the SAME Bible... then that movement has become a thing unto itself and not an extension of the teachings of Jesus. Scripture is of no private interpretation. If one church enforces that they are the only ones who believe the right way and hold services the right way and EVERYONE ELSE IS WRONG... they did not get that from the Bible. 

So, Isayah 61 Ministries is seeking to COMBINE all true Kingdom minded people of God and their parent churches to do the works of God in the community. People like LP should have a fellowship to call home so they are not shunned by religious formats. Homeless people should find support and acceptance in the church. Is61 will seek to know EVERY body of believers well enough to be able to offer several choices of church bodies to new converts from any background where they may feel plugged in and discipled well. Pastors need to embrace the fact that a person is cared for and getting discipled rather than the fact they lost a member or a tithe source. Some bodies are gifted at evangelism and discipleship but might not have opportunities for other services. Those seeker friendly churches provide a handshake experience between God and man but often lack in producing mature leaders for deeper level works of God or services for older populations. Those mega-churches draw big numbers but are quite easy for those who are struggling to be overlooked in. There are many illustrations I can use but we all need all of us. Its the City or the County church that meet in 40 different buildings weekly. That is the Church. 

Isayah 61 will seek to grow every church in the area and also be a church for a season to those who cannot find placement and especially for the pastors in the areas too. Services on the regular will be where pastors can find real fellowship and brotherhood (sisterhood too, we have Lydias in our generation too) as they lead and struggle in this push for the Gospel. By collaborating we will overcome the works of darkness. To that point, the man addicted to meth, porn, prostitutes, violence, child abuse, wine, and football better be more offensive to every person of God than the fact that another man who calls himself a Christian does or does not speak in tongues, does or does not raise their hands while singing, does or does not celebrate the christianized pagan holidays Constantine blended into church culture, does or does not use musical instruments in church services, does or does not use electricity or modern conveniences, does or does not have a particular form of church government, uses grape juice or actual alcoholic wine, sings from a hymnal or top 40 Christian songs, and so on... Anything that divided Christians from each other is a devil. Literally. It isn't those things listed above that divide, it is the belief that those things are worthy of causing division over. Jesus is looking for fruit. The fruit is in Galatians 5. The fruit is in Ephesians 2. The fruit is in the continual sanctification of ones deeds over time. The fruit is in an overall lifestyle that looks more like Jesus day by day to year by year. 

Please see the Mission page for services that you'd normally see on a page like this. I just never changed this page's name on the template and felt like writing this part today. Likely will move this to a blog page later!