GOD HELP CHRISTIANS
Jeff Knight on Churches Working Together
Col 3:12-14, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
Travis, our youth pastor was put in one hell of a position this week when a member of another church chose to spew all kinds of garbage about The Rock Church, in a public coffee house of all places. Word to the wise, no Christian should confront a pastor of any position or church in a public place. Period! Never! Confronting pastors in public achieves nothing unless the intent is to harm that pastor or church. If there is a problem with a pastor go to them privately--as the Bible says in Matt 18--but never talk about them to another person or confront them in public. 9 times out of 10 after the public confrontation the pastor is discouraged and the confronteer feels stupid. It's just not worth it. If there is a problem handle it privately.
You might be wondering what the content of the confrontation was. It's nothing new; same old stuff we've heard since the vision of Connecting People to Life was put in our hearts by GOD. Comments like, "The Rock Church is just a big production (show)," or "They have to do it bigger and better all the time," "it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth"...yada yada yada. Most of the time it just rolls off and I don't answer the fool in their folly, but one of the comments made me laugh out loud and was worth a thought, so here goes.
It was said with negative connotation, "All The Rock Church does is turn things into ministry." My thoughts, "SAY WHAT?" Of course we do ministry. That's why we exist; to Connect People to Life. Who is Life? Jesus Christ is life. My gosh if we are spending our budgets on things that don't add up to ministry at the end of the day then what are we here for? The whole point of The Rock Church is ministry.
Even while giving this person at the coffee shop the benefit of the doubt I've considered that Christians sometimes expect ministry to happen without the use of words. Like we can just go be good friends with someone and some how they will get saved. The old quote, "Preach the gospel and if necessary use words" is a nice thought and word picture, but it's not scriptural. Words must be used. Salvation comes through "confessing" with our mouth and believing in our heart on the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture tells us, "How will they know unless it is preached." Preaching comes in many fashions and styles, but words are the common denominator.
At TRC we do a lot of ministry where no words are used because the message is communicated through serving, excellence, worship, love, kindness, and a bunch of other great virtues; in reality, those virtues only earn us the right to finally minister to someone with words. So if we use video games to gather kids, the end result will be earning an opportunity to share, with words, the good news of Jesus. If we give out free hot dogs on a Friday night we may not preach the message that night, but hopefully sowing into lives over and over will earn us the right to use words eventually.
Frankly, Travis was exposed to a jealous frustrated Christian who got their feelings hurt because our Church tried to do something to reach a boat load of students. It's sad that Christians have to tackle those wearing the same jersey. How foolish does a football team look when their guys are tripping and tackling each other. Frankly, I think Christians look just as foolish when they get "their ministries" hurt and start judging others.
There is a lot of unity in our city right now. The leaders of our churches have taken great strides and I am confidant God is doing something world class in Monroe through all the churches, but until Christians from these churches who play competitive jealous church games stop speaking foolishly it may take a lot longer than we think.
Last I checked there are obituaries everyday. Since people are dying all around us without Christ shouldn't we get over "our ministry" and work together to reach as many people as we can. The Rock Church will never do ministry the way your church does; likewise, your church will never be like The Rock. Isn't that great? God likes variety and so do people. So instead of judging what The Rock is doing, why don't you focus your negativity on MTV or something that resembles everything we are trying to keep our kids from. And if you do something better than The Rock, Good for you! How can we assist? But if we can do something you can't why won't you let us? Better yet, why won't you celebrate with us while we do what we do?
NO doubt, The Rock Church has made many blunders in our history, but there are a few things we are good at. I just pray that others--in other churches--would begin to celebrate the hundreds of salvations this year, the scores of water baptisms, the numerous miracles and wonderful things God does through TRC.
Col 3:12-14, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
And to my Youth Pastor Travis. Jesus said, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you." Keep going man, you are reaching this generation one student at a time. There will be a day when thousands will look to you to love 'em and lead 'em. I believe in you, there are 1,500 revved up TRC'ers who are in your corner. Don't ever forget that the religious will always be with you. Look around and see that there are many more for you than against.
