The Salt Shaker Booklet No. 4
Or
MUST CONDITIONS GET WORSE?
Wyn Fountain
The Transformation of society is the main function of the church. Not just revival of the church Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth". Evangelism in the sense of getting people "saved" is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Those saved are called to be SALT AND LIGHT.
There are those who believe that the return of Jesus Christ is so close that all we have time for is to get people saved and into the lifeboat and wait for Jesus to come and take us all to heaven.
"Don't waste time", they say, "trying to transform society". They told my father that over 100 years ago. They told me that 60 years ago, and some are still talking that way. In the meantime the forces of corruption have all but swept the effects of the Great Awakening away because of this distracting doctrine. If John Wesley and William Carey and others of their day had accepted that doctrine Britain would never have experienced the Great Awakening and Carey would not have gone to India. But that doctrine blighted my life for several decades, which I greatly regret.
What is the Great Awakening? Do you ask?
Two hundred years ago, Britain and the British Empire were transformed by a remarkable movement. John Wesley was ostracised by the churches and formed over ten thousand small groups through which he taught lay men and women to go back into the factories, mines, hospitals, schools and parliament etc., and transform the nation. William Carey, the great pioneer missionary to India was one of those lay people, a cobbler. We have described the amazing scope of the interests of both Wesley and Carey in Booklet No. 2. They were involved in much more than church building.
By all means get as many as possible to accept the salvation that Jesus offers, but evangelists are only spiritual obstetricians. What are all these new births for? They are to provide God with Kingdom citizens that will be involved in accepting the responsibilities that our destiny demands.
That of transforming planet earth and its inhabitants to be as ready as possible for the return of the KING when he will establish the kingdom of God on earth.
Charles Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher, expended his energies in anticipation of the fulfilment of Ps.86:9 "All nations you have made will come and worship before you, Oh Lord". He made the following comment when preaching on that text; "David was a not a believer in the theory that the world would grow worse and worse and that the dispensation will wind up in general darkness and idolatry...........not so do we expect, but we look for a day when the dwellers of all lands shall learn of righteousness, shall trust in the saviour, shall worship thee alone, Oh God, and shall glorify thy name. The sooner it (the theory) is shown to be unscriptural, the better for the cause of God. It neither consorts with prophecy, honours God, nor inspires the church with ardour. Far hence be it driven.
The expectation of increasing corruption on earth is a classic example of how future expectations govern present behaviour, because it has resulted in many evangelical Christians withdrawing from the battle, retreating into the ghetto of the local church and allowing the atheistic forces of humanism to dominate society. That was the environment in which I was brought up. I have experienced it first hand. Today, I refuse to be deterred by those who tell me that things can only get worse. I cannot ignore Matthew 24 :14, " The gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed in all the inhabited earth for a testimony to all nations and then will come the end".
The end of what? The end of the world? Certainly not, creation is to be redeemed as per Romans 8:21. "Creation itself will be liberated from the bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God"
It is the end of the age of the rejection of Christ the KING. It is the beginning of that Great and Wonderful Day of The Lord. We must work as though we will achieve transformation, no matter what the future holds.
That is the point of reference outside of ourselves to which we anchor our conscience. Note that this Gospel of the Kingdom is not the good news about Jesus the saviour, it is about his KINGSHIP, for when the "end" comes he then becomes King of Creation, Lord of All. What is more, we his bride, are destined to rule and reign with him. That is what life now is all about. Preparation for that day constitutes the purpose of life. That is what transformation is all about.
SOCIETY CANNOT BE TRANSFORMED INSIDE THE LOCAL CHURCH.
"If our culture is to be transformed, it will happen from the bottom up - from ordinary believers practising apologetics over the backyard fence or around the barbecue grill. To be sure, it is important for Christian scholars to conduct research and hold academic symposia, but the real leverage for cultural change comes from transforming the habits and dispositions of ordinary people."
Charles Colson in "How NOW Shall We Live?"
Transformation is becoming a buzzword among pastors, largely as a result of the videotapes produced by Geo. Otis JR. It will never be achieved, however, within the activities of the local church, even though church leaders talk about it enthusiastically. The transformation of society will only be achieved through the vast army of lay people being salt and light where they live and work within the fabric of society. The reasons are obvious. *FIRSTLY, salt can only function if it is permeating the substance it is supposed to season. The salt has to get out of the salt cellar.
When Christians are always engaged in the church programme, society hardly feels the presence of the church. Yet, at the same time, society IS penetrated every
day of the week as thousands of believers live and work among other people. The agents of transformation therefore should be that great army of lay believers, who are already working in the fabric of society, as Charles Colson says. Not professional evangelists and church pastors.
THE CHURCHES' TOP PRIORITY is to equip our people to demonstrate the power of the risen Christ where they live and work. If the pastors cannot do that we must think outside the square.
Who teaches the business people how to live Christianly in business?
Who has taught schoolteachers, until recently, how to teach Christianly, and that it is possible to do so within our school system?
Who teaches our journalists to think biblically and write secularly?
Who teaches the medical profession about the biblical bases of preventive medicine?
If the churches can't, then we must do some lateral thinking outside the square.
*SECONDLY, leadership seminars arranged by church leaders are invariably about leadership within the church structure, not about leadership out in society.
If the local church cannot provide encouragement and instruction as to how to engage in leadership in society as an agent of the kingdom of God, once again we must think outside the square, or resign ourselves not to see transformation in our day.
*THIRDLY, pastors rarely have the time to become aware of the issues that need to be addressed in society, let alone the solutions to the problems that will produce transformation, because church responsibilities demand so much time. Nor do they see that as their responsibility. These issues go away beyond evangelism, praise and worship, and mere church activities. They involve much more than certain morality issues such as abortion, homosexual and heterosexual
promiscuity. It involves education, fatherless families, health and welfare etc.
The churches have been good at picking up the pieces at the bottom of the cliff, but if we don't build fences at the top, our "ambulance" work will become intolerably overwhelming. How do we do this? By becoming aware, not only of the problems, but the causes and the solutions. We are all called to this at different levels of involvement. Not everybody is being called to research and
analysis, nor to lobby group activity which a small band of well-informed dedicated people can spearhead, as Wilberforce an others did during the Great Awakening. In New Zealand Maxim Institute has created a research department and is leading the way in this regard. All of us however are called to be "Salt and light" where we live, work and play.
*FOURTHLY, Pastors expectations tend to simplify the means of transformation by talking in terms of church unity, combined prayer, combined church rallies and evangelism. The simplistic expectation is that the churches will come together to pray in unity for revival. Then God, in his sovereignty, will work behind the scenes. The evils we now see proliferating will be dramatically reduced. Thousands will accept Christ as saviour and the churches will be full to
overflowing. Praise and worship meetings will proliferate. Why is this simplistic? Because there are two important elements that are easily overlooked.
1. THE INITIATING MOTIVATION. How did the process of transformation start in the videos?
2. THE PERMANENCE OF TRANSFORMATION. How can we ensure that it will last?
1. THE INITIATING MOTIVATION
In the Otis transformation tapes, the unity in prayer was motivated by some urgent social evil such as drugs, crime, poverty and the occult.
* Are we too comfortable here in N.Z. to be motivated by a sense of
urgency over a serious corrupting evil in our midst?
* Is there an evil that is serious enough to create a real sense of urgency?
* What would you say is the worst social evil in our society that needs to be
vigorously addressed? I believe we have such an issue, it is THE DENIGRATION OF MARRIAGE AND THE LACK OF ADEQUATE FATHERING WHICH IS CREATING A GREAT COST IN BOTH LIVES, AND MONEY. We must pray about this of course. But more than prayer is needed.
The denigration of marriage is responsible for the disintegration of the family and the fatherless generation that we are producing. Research has produced ample evidence that this is the root of many of our social evils. Billions of taxpayer funds are dissipated through bad fathering and solo parenting. But there is no structure to create a united voice from the churches. It appears that each church is too occupied with its own activities to take the initiative. It will require more than united prayer meetings and combined functions. It will require thinking outside the square and working outside of the four walls of the church. The Parenting with Confidence organisation is doing a great job in this connection, but inadequate fathering is on the increase and needs to be
addressed vigorously as a separate issue from normal parenting by two people.
2. PERMANENT TRANSFORMATION.
History records very few revivals around the world that have lasted for any length of time. Is transformation always only to be temporary? If not, what is necessary to provide permanence? Can we find a precedent in history?
Once again, the best that history records in recent centuries, is the Great Awakening, which was essentially a lay movement, stimulated by John Wesley. The effects of that revival are still with us.
As in the Days of the Great awakening this depends on lay men and women, not just the pastors and church staff, nor on academic institutions. Lay people outside of the church environment must exercise transformational spiritual leadership. Believers are still Church seven days a week, but pastors cannot exercise spiritual leadership for all the congregation seven days a week.
This leadership beyond the church environment is in the terms of Ephesians 4:11
" It was he who gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service". N.I.V.
This verse is usually used to describe the spiritual leadership of the local church. The Greek word used is DIAKONIA. Let me quote from Vines Expository Dictionary under Ministry, when writing about Eph.4: 11. "Not in the sense of an ecclesiastical function" If Vine is right and I personally believe that he is, we have here the clue to permanent transformation. i.e. Spiritual leadership must be encouraged and developed in lay people to be exercised outside the church within the fabric of society. "Covering" by the local pastor outside
church is nonsense. It is, in fact, an impossibility. Mentoring must take place where people live and work by people who live and work there. It cannot be left to the "professionals".
WHAT DOES NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION MEAN?
Are we agreed on our objectives? I will venture a definition:
Transformation can be claimed for our nation when behaviour, not just beliefs, in every aspect of society, not just the church, is governed by a common morality and common values, that are derived from a commitment to Christ the King, (not just Christ the saviour), with the Bible as our guide and the Holy Spirit as our mentor.
That will seem to be a ridiculously unattainable objective, to most people, but that is what the bible promises.
Heb. 8:10 " I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour or a man his brother, saying 'know the Lord', because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest."
THAT IS THE NEW COVENANT. It involves life-style, not just salvation.
That is our goal, no matter how impossible it seems here and now. If we do not have a target we will not be seeking to reach it. We cannot afford to settle for the status quo.
Why do we have no difficulty in accepting the next two verses as applying to this present age, yet ignore those above as unattainable? Heb. 8: 12 "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more". I suppose it is because we accept it as a promise that will only be fulfilled after Christ returns. We put it in the too hard basket because we have never yet heard of that happening in two thousand years. But when Christ does return, will he expect to find the church and the world no better than it was when he left it, or will he expect his bride to "make herself ready" for the wedding of the
Lamb, (Rev.19:7) to be equal to the task of ruling with Jesus on this planet, upon his return. Jesus said, " I have overcome the world". Is there to be no progress? Must we accept the status quo?
The parable of the talents would seem to indicate that he certainly expects to find PROGRESSION when he returns. The one who buried his talent was severely rebuked. We are only too glad to accept and believe in verse 12 above, because that is something we receive as a free gift from God. We don't have to do anything except repent and accept. But to become involved in changing the
world makes a tremendous demand upon us. God has done his part, now it is our turn.
Is it reasonable for Jesus to expect that his bride would prepare herself before the wedding? I think it is, because no bride would go to her wedding unprepared. It says that the Bride has prepared HERSELF. We don't wait until Jesus does it AFTER the wedding.
THE CHURCH IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES did not have the huge denominational organisations that we have today. Persecution forced them to meet in small groups in the houses. They didn't meet in huge buildings, sitting in rows, fellowshipping with the back of the head in front of them.
They were "members one of another"; they talked face to face about the issues of life and manifested mutual love and support, so that even one Caesar said, " How these Christians love one another". These people overcame the Roman Empire.
Centuries later, after the fall of Rome, Europe was in chaos and the church was almost destroyed not only by attacks from without, but by corruption within.
EUROPE WAS RE-EVANGELISED BY THE IRISH MONKS,
who came in from the west in groups of twelve. Christianity was preserved, so that we today look back upon a history in which the foundations of our civilisation were founded on Judeo/Christian virtues and values. These monks were not backed up by a wealthy organisation, but they went out in small self-supporting groups. When a local church grew another small group would go out further, right across Europe.
Now let us come up to comparatively modern times. The civilisation and common values that our society is built on came from Britain, where in the 18th century, the conditions were far worse that they are today. Britain was ripe to follow France into revolution. But not only was that avoided, but also the character of the nation was transformed through the GREAT AWAKENING under Wesley and Whitefield. Wesley established 10,000 small groups whereby transformational spiritual leadership was developed amongst the lay people, and religion related to everyday life, not just Sunday.
The Great Awakening is the best-kept secret of recent history as it is taught both in the education system and within the churches. I am appalled by the ignorance of this phenomenon among Christians. History has been re-written by secular educationists, and Christian leaders largely ignore what happened two hundred years ago.
Ostracised by the church, Wesley used these groups to instruct the thousands, encouraging them to take their religion into the mines, factories, hospitals and industry. The famous work of well-known people at that time was motivated by their spiritual experience gained through that Great Awakening. Wilberforce, who worked so hard to have slavery abolished was one. Shaftesbury who worked to improve conditions in industry was another. Howard who campaigned for the
amelioration of the prisons was another. There were hundreds of others. Books have been written about that period and should be required reading. They describe the work of many that changed the course of history. Historians record that Britain would have followed France into a bloody revolution if it hadn't been for the Great Awakening.
"Oh but", people declare, "Britain had been a very Christian country for centuries. Things are far worse today". Nonsense! The year that Wesley was converted 1738, Bishop Berkeley wrote that morality and religion in Britain had collapsed to a degree that has never been known in any Christian country". For confirmation we have only to refer to writers such as Kingsley, Defoe, Poe, Swift, Johnson and Dickens to get a picture of conditions in those days. Historians such as Lecky, Macaulay, Halevy are singularly agreed.
The fact is that there was indisputably, a phenomenal social and moral degeneracy at this period. Corruption was rife in the courts, royalty, the church, parliament and the prison system. Conditions are far better today, but we are again heading for another such period due to the atheistic influence of the so-called "Enlightenment" and scientific materialism. Modernism captured the minds of our educators. But Post-modernism today is a rejection of the "Enlightenment" modernism. It is a return to spirituality. Conferences are being called by secular organisations to "Explore Spirituality in the Workplace". These conferences are open to Christian input. Don't let us underestimate the opportunity that this affords.
The answer is not to hold up our hands in horror at the corruption we see around us and continue playing church. It is to adopt the attitude of John Wesley who accepted the challenge TO STIMULATE TRANSFORMATIONAL LAY LEADERSHIP. Or the cobbler, William Carey, who went into India opposed by the so-called "Christian" British rulers of India to tackle the entrenched religions of that vast country, and the corrupt Christianity of the British Raj.
TRANSFORMATIONAL SPIRITUAL LAY LEADERSHIP
CALLING is the primary requisite of a transformational spiritual leader. Firstly to one's career, because when the going gets rough doubts will arise to diffuse one's resolve and secondly, to take the initiative among one's colleagues.
TRAINING is next on the priority list.
1. Training in the performance of one's job in order to do well and gain credibility, then
2. Training as to how to conduct oneself as a believer in that calling "seeking first the Kingdom of God", not only in respect of personal relationships but also the technical aspects of one's career, as a holy calling.
The first is comparatively easy, the second is not because very few churches know how . A new Transformational Leadership of lay people needs to evolve. But not a class of professional trainers who only know the techniques, but who are not living the life at home, at work or in their recreation, in the power of the Holy Spirit. For love to operate in the workplace it must be operating in the home first.
Transformational Leadership involves a personal passionate devotion to the person of Jesus Christ, so that we will teach out of a relationship rather than out of knowledge. A relationship with Jesus, based on the knowledge that the purpose of our very existence is to engage in our career, work, play, and sexual relationships as a preparation for the "Wedding of the Lamb". (Shalom harmony)
We believers must be seen to be different, to have something that others haven't got. If that is not true, what is all our church activity about? What is the gospel we preach? People are not interested in how different we are in church. Nor in what we believe. They want to see that difference in daily life. Spirituality must be exercised primarily in daily life, life centred, not church centred. The services of a life centred church are vibrant.
Unfortunately, society today does not see anything very different from their own in the lives of the masses of believers and their curiosity is rarely aroused. Until they do, can we blame God if he doesn't send revival for a people who do not reflect his glory? If so much depends upon the lives of the lay people outside of the church, our most important responsibility is to equip the lay people to live life in their careers Christianly, obeying the voice of God daily.
"EQUIPPING THE SAINTS FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY" REQUIRES THREE STEPS:
1. Establish a theological foundation.
The Academics job is to study the principles of a Kingdom Worldview that embraces the Marketplace Theology, the Monday to Saturday Kingdom, etc. and to propagate the resulting world view to the churches and lay believers. But the nature of the academic function is to set down general guidelines for all types, not to be specific as regards careers and callings.
There are at least three colleges in Auckland that offer suitable courses:
Bible College of N.Z.
Carey Baptist College,
New Covenant International Bible College
2 Teach How to apply the principles in specific callings.
Such teaching is rare, and needs to be promoted.
MASTERS Teachers Training Institute is an example of what can be done.
BETHLEHEM College also has a Teachers Training College.
A Seminar for Christians in Business is now being prepared.
3. Put it all into practice
Don't let us fool ourselves; a theological foundation, training and teaching, however necessary, is not practising. If we don't put our knowledge into practice, what is the value of all the rest of our church activities or our theoretical training? The easy part is attending lectures and classes and reading books telling us "How NOW shall we live".
The hard part is putting it into practice.
We do not find it easy. Very few of us can go it alone. We need to be "members one of another". We all need others with whom we can confer and talk over the practical aspects of our lives.
This requires mentoring at the workface.
This is where small groups can be so effective.
It was small groups that gave permanence to the Great Awakening.
Schoolteachers encouraging schoolteachers, business people encouraging business people, etc.
Small groups must become "Think Tanks" addressing the problems and issues of society in the environment of their own careers to achieve transformation. Otherwise we have to work as individuals.
I think I can even hear God saying, " I hear your praise and worship in your services and see all the hours you put in, to produce perfection, thank you. But what really brings me joy is when your lives, seven days a week constitute a sacrifice of praise and worship, bringing glory to my name and performing the function of salt in the world".
JESUS SAID...
"You are the Salt of the earth...............,
"You are the light of the world............, he was speaking to his bride.
He was obviously telling her what her function was, not what her status was.
He didn't say, "You are the cream of the earth".
It is an extremely sobering thought to realise that the future of this planet depends on how we accept that responsibility.
It is also extremely uncomfortable to realise that so much trauma, suffering and chaos has been created on earth not only by His Bride failing to perform that function by spreading love everywhere, but it has promoted hatred as in Northern Ireland and many parts of the world, in Europe particularly, the centre of Judeo/Christian culture.
But we have entered a new age of opportunity. Post modernism is a return to spirituality. The churches are making a concerted effort to stop hating one another and to come together in unity. People are getting to hate violence and violent conflict. A recent census revealed that 70% of our population believed in God, after a century of vigorous attacks from Darwinist atheists. There is an upsurge of HOPE for the Transformation of the World in Christian circles.
It is reasonable to expect that we can yet achieve what has been beyond our reach during the last century?
A new spiritual leadership must be developed amongst lay people to take the battle outside the church. This is happening already, how can we accelerate it?