Reader’s responses to The Big Question.

February 5, 2007

The Question:  What’s the Apostolic movement’s single biggest impediment to reaching the lost?

 

The Answer:  “We structure our churches based on what happens on Sunday morning (i.e., our validation comes from our position at church). If we ever are going to get outside of the four walls, we need to structure our churches as such.”

The Answer:  “Pride.”

The Answer:  “The people of the Apostolic Movement are the weakest link. God will do His part . . . we must do ours. The way to do that is to be a vessel that God can use for His glory and purpose.”

The Answer:  “All I really know is that we can’t keep expecting people to get the Holy Ghost on Sunday morning and on Sunday night expect them coming back with the Pentecostal poof and skirts to the floor. We need to show people love, stop counting numbers. I’m so sick of people saying—well, we had 10 get the Holy Ghost last week. Stop counting the numbers please, and start looking at the people who are being won! If we don’t show love to those we bring into our churches, we will never experience growth! We can’t let them receive the Holy Ghost and walk out of our lives forever!”

The Answer:  “Fear.”

The Answer:  “We may be concentrating more on upkeep than outreach. We should live the A/P life with utmost conviction, and then sharing our lifestyle will be second nature. The charismatic movement is seeing the crowds and the A/P is not, as this movement makes it difficult for the A/P to really show the goods, as it looks better on the charismatic end. I guess when one is in the shoes of the charismatic movement; we will surely miss the A/P. But then, I know we have the best preachers in the house, and the most dedicated missionaries on earth. Real thing or watered down? A/P or nothing!”

The Answer:  “The clunking machinery of nepotism.”

The Answer:  “Apathy.”

The Answer:  “Prayer, fasting, anointing, and personal devotion to our Lord! When believers are constantly seeking God, putting more of Him in our lives and less of ourselves, God will move in the congregation of the saints. If we pray, seek Him and His will, there will not be a problem with so called holiness standards, and most definitely not leave the infallible truths of the Apostolic Church; Oneness Of God/Acts 2:38 message. Then and only then, will the lost be saved. When we lift Him up in praise and worship, the lost will come and be saved!”

The Answer:  “I believe it is not going on TV because TBN would be no match to our television station because the people of integrity, honesty, holiness, and most important, people of the Name should not be afraid of the television. People say that we will lose our standards. Well, if we lose our standards, then we must not be building strong relationships with the Lord of Glory.”

The Answer:  “The refusal to use women in the pulpit as well as behind the peanut brittle pot.”

The Answer:  “We have adopted a philosophy of ministry based off the Catholic model that presents the ministry as masters, not servants. I’ve had friends shunned at dinners because a pastor’s wife refused to sit with saints! She will be lonely at the marriage supper of the Lamb! I’ve seen men of God shunned by ministry because they walked in the Spirit but did not carry an organizational card so they were emotionally and spiritually disfellowshipped by the UPC papacy. I’ve even seen one of our ministers on the East Coast tell his congregation, ‘God will not speak to you, he will only speak to me. Well, okay, He might speak to you, but only 5% of the time and to me 95% of the time.’

We have idolized some of our ministry and evangelists to godlike status. God broke me of this three years ago when a UPC minister threatened me in his office when my wife falsely accused me of child abuse. When confronted with proof of the lies, he shut me off like a light switch and hung up.

God, deliver us from ministry that walks in the flesh not the spirit! I teach a strong holiness message, but I don’t kill my brother, for whom Christ died, with my standards and beliefs.

If you want to know the single biggest impediment . . . ministry and saints who will not walk in the Spirit of Christ but choose to walk in their flesh! Forget about your book sales and converting your sermons to books. God doesn’t care if you sell them to raise money to missions and have over 700 on Sunday morning if you won’t leave the 99 and go after the one lost sheep, the one broken marriage, the one homeless man, the one hurting child! Deliver us from ourselves!”

The Answer:  “Definitely self-righteousness. Just because your hair is long and you’re wearing a skirt does not mean you have more of Christ in your life. If you are truly spirit filled, you will have love, compassion, and sensitivity like Christ did. You will not turn up your nose and pretend you are holier than thou. Why would anyone want that kind of religion?”

The Answer:  “The Apostolic movement’s biggest impediment is becoming more like the lost to reach the lost. I think it was Bro. Matt Maddix that said, ‘It’s our difference that makes the difference.’”

The Answer:  “Two things that I see: 1) Focusing on getting them into the church building or getting them to know their God, rather than just teaching and showing them God and once we get them in; 2) Getting them grounded in church, rather than God.”

The Answer:  “Have too many pastors been guilty of legislating the truth as opposed to instilling it into the hearts of the flock, so that regardless of what happens they know what they believe and why?”

The Answer:  “We have received so much teaching on living the life, and not enough teaching on speaking the words. To share the gospel, sometimes you have to open your mouth and tell the gospel. What is the gospel? Well, of course, we know it is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, being ready always to give a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear is a great start!”

The Answer:  “We cannot relate to them in their ‘worldly’ issues because we are so separated from the rest of the world.”

The Answer:  “Jesus Christ had multitudes wanting to hear his radical message of reform and love and breaking free from legalism. People were excited by his message and by his person. They felt convicted, never condemned in His presence.

The single biggest impediment the Ap movement is that we as a whole have become more concerned about looking and acting the part and judging others when they don’t seem to fit our standards. The traditions are killing us. If we were more like Jesus, we would be radically fundamentally different. And we would be relevant for this time.”

The Answer:  “Trying to change them even before they walk through the door. Lack of love for people in general, even among their own.”

The Answer:  “Unconcern, fear of rejection, backward.”

The Answer:  “It seems that too often we don’t really get the love across. We tend to focus on being right and seem to forget humility. We also forget to listen to what people believe and we can neglect to give them the courtesy that we would expect. Perhaps we don’t treat others as we would like to be treated. We go to such trouble to ‘get the Holy Ghost’ and then forget to let Him do His job of drawing their soul. Maybe we just don’t trust God to be able to do the job without our direction?”

The Answer:  “The fact that the major organizations are, with few individual church exceptions, backslidden and lost themselves.”

The Answer:  “Single? Yikesssss! It must be judgment. Everything against reaching the lost is about judging them. They might run the church or they might ruin the church . . . Judgment is coming and it will not be man’s; it will be God’s. Will you be able to stand in His judgment? How is your attitude? Spirit? Love? Kindness?”

The Answer:  “Ourselves. We have too many Pentecostals who treat church as a country club, who cannot be bothered with lifting a finger to anyone other than themselves.”

The Answer:  “A lack of love for the unchurched.”

The Answer:  “Being so involved in church activities that we fail to interact with non-Apostolics on a regular basis enough to develop relationships.”

The Answer:  “We think we have the exclusive rights to the move of God.”

The Answer:  “We are better than everyone else.”

The Answer:  “We spend too much time majoring in minors!”

The Answer:  “Time wasters. We are all amusing ourselves with mindless things that distract us from God’s purpose--reaching the lost. I am one of the worst.”

The Answer:  “Selfishness. Living in the me and mine mindset. Loss of passion for the lost.”

The Answer:  “I heard this story a long time ago. Sister Amy had a vision. She watched a very long line of people by twos and threes walking along a path, talking and laughing and suddenly each one came to a cliff with flames shooting up, but they did not see it and kept walking until they fell over the edge. In the meantime, a group of saints were singing and clapping and dancing around a tree within sight of the tragedy, some making daisy chains. What will our answer be?”

The Answer:  “What I see in my environment is that we have done such a good job of teaching our youth and converts to be separate from the world and have created so many ways for them to huddle together almost at all times (schools, endless youth activities, our own sports leagues, etc.) that they struggle to develop relationships with those in the world that need to be reached.

Jesus spent His time with sinners, but we are given every opportunity not to. It is a dangerous proposition, though. Is it the chicken or the egg? Do we lose (to backsliding) saints because we are so withdrawn from the world or do we withdraw to keep saints closer to God?”

The Answer:  “Too many of us are stuck in traditional evangelistic ruts--we can’t think outside the box and adapt to the changing world around us. I’m not talking about watering down our message or tricking people into thinking we’re something we’re not, but there are new ways to approach the world around us that many people in our organization just won’t use, and therefore will miss this opportunity to reach so many more souls.”

The Answer:  “I don’t think there is one single impediment, but rather many, but I can only speak for my church, and what I see is people who, for the most part, don’t try to befriend the lost who visit our church. The main people in our church who I refer to are dressed to the nines every Sunday and the ‘sinners’ can’t relate to them. I don’t think we should try to look like the world, but it turns people away, I think, because they generally don’t wear nice clothes and they don’t have the most put together hairstyles and they feel uncomfortable and out of place.

There is also a lack of fellowship with the visitors. In my church, people visit for a few services and hardly anyone makes an effort to fellowship with them, so they quit coming. We are so focused on our friends and groups that we ignore others, unintentionally. Why can’t we stop focusing on how holy we look or expensive our outfit was and instead focus on reaching these people? I have seen some of these perfect looking Pentecostals actually look at a visitor with disdain because they don’t look nice! Many just want someone to be their friend. I’m so tired of the cliques in Pentecost. Some of us are not friendly at all.”

The Answer:  “Fighting with each other! How can we reach the lost when we can’t be tolerant of each other?”

The Answer:  “Our inward focus on keeping everyone following the rules.”

The Answer:  “Lack of vision.”

The Answer:  “Unconditional Love! Love, Love, Love!”

The Answer:  “Complete lack of dedication of taking the church beyond the four walls and into the needy people who need it.”

The Answer:  “Focusing on our own righteousness and not seeking after His.”

The Answer:  “The Christian rock movement. We seem to have bought into the lie that we have to be like the world to reach them. We say it’s just fluff to get them in the doors. The only problem is once we get them in, they aren’t growing. It won’t be long before we are just like everyone else.”

The Answer:  “Actually, two things: (1) The fact that Lost airs on Wednesday night when most of us have Bible Study; (2) The fact that we aren’t supposed to have a TV anyway.”

The Answer:  “It’s one thing to be a separate people. It’s another to be a high and mighty ‘holier than thou’ people.”

The Answer:  “Politics!”

 

The Answer:  “Intimidation because of lack of knowledge.”

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