Church and Ministry

I will never forget that early spring day in 1996 when I attended a pastors’ conference to hear Dr. Warren Wiersbe. I had grown significantly as a Christian on Wiersbe’s teaching and writings, but this was my first opportunity to see him in person. I was like a kid catching a foul ball at a big league game when Wiersbe tapped me on the shoulder before the first session and blurted out, “What are you preaching on these days?”

The conference made a profound impression on me—but not just because Wiersbe was kind enough to talk to me and sign my copy of one of his books. His subject—“Piloting on a Sea of Change”—left an imprint in my mind and gave me a reference point to which I still return.

Wiersbe used Heb. 12:25-29 as his main text. “God is shaking things,” his inimitable voice spoke—complete with drawn-out syllables. I summarized as follows in my notes: “God shakes things so that things we think are important are taken away, and what is left is only what is truly important.”

The World is Changing

Indeed, God is shaking things. Issues in the life of the church that Wiersbe alluded to back then have grown to full bloom in the last 14 years. It is now common for congregations to offer “a new way of doing church.”

Reprinted with permission from Voice magazine, July/August 2010.

I opened the door to a freshly painted, warmly decorated church foyer. It was my first time in this rural church of less than two hundred members. People were talking together in small huddles. Some were laughing; others were listening with concern. They greeted each other with hugs. They seemed comfortable and at home with one another.

I made eye contact with a few and smiled. Some looked away; some smiled back, but none left their group of friends to greet me. I took a bulletin from the table and walked into the sanctuary…alone.

The sanctuary was beautiful. Soft music created a worshipful atmosphere. I walked half way down the aisle and sat on the end. People began to fill the pews around me. Several excused themselves to step over me, but no one talked to me. Soon the room was filled, but I felt alone.

For over a year, I attended twenty different churches with similar scenarios. I was an undercover pastor’s wife, disguised as a visitor. My mission: to observe. I chose to accept this mission in order to help my husband lead our new church family ten hours away. Dave was already there, but due to a flat housing market, I stayed in our old town trying to sell our house for almost three years. With many Sundays free, I seized the opportunity to visit other churches.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

I was recently asked to serve as a mentor for a student taking courses in a Bible college. I compiled a selection of practical suggestions for this student. Perhaps my suggestions to him may be of some use to others.

1. Begin keeping a journal to record your thoughts, life events, ideas, quotes found in reading, observations, plans, etc. This will serve you well for review, reflection, and more. I have kept a regular (though not daily) journal since 1977. I have tried bound (blank-book) and spiral notebooks, and prefer the latter (I have about 60 volumes of journals). And you should go back from time to time and re-read what you wrote (I recently re-read my journal for most of 2009). It will remind you of things that ever-so-quickly slip from memory.

2. Keep a list of all books you read, noting author, title, date, total pages, and an evaluation (“review”) of the book, noting good and bad points. I commonly make my own index—written inside the back cover—of every book I read of thoughts, quotes, information, etc. that were of interest to me, or that I may wish to access in the future. Often times, a mere glance at a list of books I read 5, 10, even 20 years ago will stir up memories of their contents, memories buried deep in my mind and not consciously remembered in years. This list can be kept either as a computer file or as a hard copy. Keeping this list of books read as a database allows sorting by author, title, date, etc., which facilitates answering some questions: How many books have I read by this author? When did I read such and such a book? How many times have I read this volume? Obviously, what we read affects what we know, and how we perceive things. Tell me what books a man has read and which ones he values most, and I will tell you what he is.

“If the Bible is true, why are there so many denominations?” What Christian has not fielded this question? Yet there is an unspoken assumption behind this objection, namely, that having one denomination is somehow a good thing. I suggest that the opposite is true. Bigger is not always better.

“But didn’t the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, teach that there should be just one denomination? Wouldn’t the church be more effective if we had one central voice?”

When the churches were one

Before we explore these valid concerns, let me prime your mind by asking a few questions of my own. When most of Christendom was part of one denomination, how ideal were things? Before 1054 AD (when the Eastern Orthodox Church split from the old Western Catholic Church), the overwhelming majority of Christendom considered itself Catholic and somewhat loyal to Rome. Both forms of Christianity had wandered far from the simplicity of Scripture centuries before the split. Were Christian laymen mighty in the Scriptures? Was the gospel of salvation by grace through faith spreading throughout the world?

The Church in Technicolor

As I write these words the History Channel is promoting a documentary on World War Two. The series consists mainly of original film shot during that great conflict. Instead of the grainy black and white of 1940’s newsreels, however, the picture has been digitally enhanced and colorized.