People Sharing Jesus

A new emphasis for 2012 at Crestview is the FOUR X FOUR CHALLENGE.  Ever since I got acquainted with Greg Wallis of Woodridge Baptist Church in Kingwood, Texas, I have been planning to implement this program as a suplement to the ongoing evangelism training which we provide.  This is a program that there literally is no reasonable excuse to ignore.  It is simple and powerful at the same time.  It involves a very old principle with a new catchy emphasis.  It is easier to reach people if we get closer to them.  Especially if we draw near specifically with a desire to share the love of the Lord with them.  This plan involves identifying four unchurched or barely churched people and committing to do four things. 

IDENTIFY - This should be something very thoughtfully and prayerfully done.  We need to let God lead us to four persons we can pray for.

INTERCEDE - We should pray for these four by name at least four times per week.

INVEST - We should do acts of kindness are friendship toward these four.  This could be sending cards, inviting to lunch, meeting some need, etc.

INVITE - We should, after identifying, interceding, investing in these people, invite them to events at the church.  We will have several events which we will label Four X Four Events.  These events will be the kind of thing unchurched people would be more likely to attend.  Of course it is also good to invite them to worship or bible study, but in some cases it may be easier to first invite them to something less intimidating.

The excitement is growing!

Dan Wooldridge

Happiness is not nearly so important a word as joy.  Happiness contains the same root has happen.  Happiness comes and goes based on what happens to us.  Joy comes from above and from within.  Joy is an attribute of the fruit of the Spirit.

Sunday I shared these Old Testament words for joy. These are Hebrew words.

1. simchach - bright and shining, this is illustrated in the bright and shining eyes of welcome when we greet a loved one.

2. masos - leaping, this is the word for jumping with joy.  Picture someone jumping up and down at a sports event.

3.Rinnah - shouting for joy,  This is illustrated in yahoo or yippee or Amen.

4.gil - spinning in circles, Picture a puppy spinning as it waits to be fed and you get the idea.

In the New Testament the word in Greek is chara.  It is very similar to the word for grace which is charis.

Our faith is a singing faith.  Singing and Christianity have enjoyed a long and storied history.  “I sing for I cannot be silent His love is the theme of my song.”  They are songs of joy.

Dan Wooldridge

Wednesday night in our prayer services at Crestview, I broke into a song at the end of the service.  I had been speaking about the second coming.  There has always been a great deal of interest in the return of Christ.  Our passage was 1 Thessalonians 5.  The point I was making is that the Scripture concerning the return of Jesus is both clear and obscure.  It is clear enough to encourage us and to warn us.  It is obscure enough to keep us humble and on our toes.  I believe God intentionally made this part of our doctrine both clear and obscure.  Even Jesus said that he himself did not know the day or hour of his return.  It seemingly was a part of the self emptying aspect of the incarnation that some things be shielded even from Jesus during his sojourn among us.

Finally I emphasized that the expectancy of the return of Jesus is an encouragement to keep our faith strong and know that his coming is sure.  It also warns us not to drift away from our faith.  Here is my favorite line of the song which I closed with.  Some asked me to print this.  Most had never heard it.

One day Jesus will call my name.

As days go by, I hope I don’t stay the same.

I want to get so close to him that it’s no big change

On the day that Jesus calls my name.

Dan Wooldridge

I think I finally understand what journalists and authors mean by the term “writer’s block”.  This is a condition of the mind that causes one to stare endlessly at a blank page with an equally blank mind.  As I seek to remedy this situation and break the spell I have been under, I hear the rainfall on our metal roof at our home here in Georgetown.  This rain looks like it could be one we have been waiting and praying for.  Already I am watching storms move across our watershed on the weather channel website.  All across our state lake levels are very low.  In case you didn’t know, there is a website called real time reservoir information which will give you the statistics on every lake level in Texas.  Only those that are not much more than ponds are excluded.  I often check the website in times of drought.  I guess you can take the rancher off of the ranch, but you cannot take the ranch out of the rancher.  Yes, among my many life experiences must be included the experience of tending cattle for my dad.  We once had a hand pump and a water trough that was our only means of getting water for the cattle in times of drought.  Every day I was to go out to the the small ranch West of Bangs and check the trough.  I would always pump it full.  Some days dad would go.  We fairly danced in the streets when rainfalls came and our tank was filled. I love Texas, but I don’t love droughts.  When we moved to Georgetown, I remember thinking how glad I was to be moving somewhere that received more than thirty inches of rain a year.  I hope my moving here didn’t mess us up.  It really was the first time I had lived in a place with an average annual rainfall of over thirty inches.  To be exact the actual average is a little more than thirty-five inches.  We didn’t make that last year.  Some say this year will be more of the same.

My dad used to hear such predictions about weather and state, “The only people who predict the weather in Texas are fools and newcomers!”  If it was a native, he would add, “And you have lived here all your life!”  Now you know where I get my sense of humor.  You also know where I got my tendency toward a friendly jab.  When dad wasn’t picking on someone it usually meant he did not like them much.

Let it rain!

Dan Wooldridge

Blogging has just not been able to make my priority list for the last few weeks.  However an experience of the last few days has stirred me to write.  My wife and I try from time to time to find a good movie.  That is harder to do than ever it seems to us.  As you know, we both enjoy reading and spend a lot of time at bookstores.  Imagine my surprise when the random choice of a movie filled me in on a piece of World War II history of which I had no previous knowledge.  The movie was SARAH’S KEY.  It is based on a novel by Tatiana Rosnay called HER NAME WAS SARAH.  The story covers the Vel d’Hiv Roundup which was carried on by French Police in Paris in 1942.  More than thirteen thousand Jews were rounded up and delivered to Auschwitz.  This was not the act of the Nazis, but of the French government as an appeasement of the Nazi power.  For the most part the Parisians stood by and accepted this action without protest.  This was something I had missed entirely in my study of the war years. The movie deliberately draws a parallel between the atrocities of World War II against the Jews and the reality of abortion.  The key character in the novel is pressured by her husband to have an abortion at the same time that she is searching for clues to solve the mystery of a missing Jewish girl from 1942.  That girl is named Sarah.  I would not want to ruin the movie for you, so why don’t you rent the dvd and watch it.  Ask yourself if there is not a worthy comparison between the silence of the citizens of Paris as over thirteen thousand of their fellow citizens are treated as if they are unworthy of life and the more than fifty million babies that have been aborted in America since 1973.  Shame on us.  Many ask today how the people of Europe could have stood by and watched the holocaust happen.  More need to ask how a free nation has denied the right to life and to freedom to more than fifty million children.  If we are silent in the face of this, then we are complicit. 

By the way, the aforementioned movie does not seem to be produced by Christians and makes no mention of the Christian faith.  It is simply a reasonable commentary on what is right and what is wrong.  Unless of course one has moved beyond the capacity to reason at all.

Dan Wooldridge

I want to write this blog to counter the assertion that many Christian leaders in the U. S. have stated and printed.  That is the idea that people no longer want or respond to personal visits at their home.  This may seem like a strange post so near to Christmas, but it fits the season.  We have long held to the children’s myth that Santa visits every house on Christmas Eve.  It is a wonderful dream for children that I also shared in my childhood.  That someone; anyone, would care about me and my family so much as to come to see us and bless us with special gifts was exciting.

I have watched the eyes of children dance with excitement when they greet me at the door and say as the scurry away, “The pastor is here!”  I delight in taking lay persons from my church to see people who are in the orbit of our ministry but not yet connected.  It is life changing to see how God works through simple conversations about Jesus, the church, and the difference that faith makes in life.  Never before in my forty years of pastoral ministry have I found people more receptive to being visited than they are today.  I only regret that I could not visit homes more often and in greater numbers.  I am personally enriched and blessed as I go.  Hundreds of times I have been greeted with the words, “I can’t believe you are here.”  I have come on the heels of heartbreaking news or troubling test results more times than I can count without having known any more than that the Spirit prompted me to go.  I truly feel that I am walking with the Savior as I walk up to another door in His name.

AFTER ALL, THE BIRTH OF JESUS WAS THE ULTIMATE VISIT TO A WORLD OF PEOPLE WHO NEEDED TO KNOW GOD CARES.

Dan Wooldridge

The average member of a Texas Baptist church will not understand this post, but perhaps those of you with decades of involvement will understand.

In the middle of the 1980,s an alarm was sounded in Texas that a particular type of fundamentalism was about to take over the bible colleges and institutions of our state.  Some of these feared leaders were as Texas as the rest of us, but cut out of different cloth than many of us.  Politics, which destroys many churches as it ravages them like cancer, hit a new high in the family of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.  Early in that movement I told one of our key statewide leaders that I saw the practice of sitting in a room with like minded individuals and talking about other spiritual leaders as wrong, in fact as sinful.  I stepped back from the fray and watched in horror as people literally pushed one another away with outrageous remarks and baseless accusations.

An organization was formed to “protect the Baptist General Convention of Texas from takeover”.  I never believed our convention needed protection.  We have all always been more alike than we are different.  We are all fundamentalist in the broad spectrum of things.  As one who reads widely in the vast array of Christian perspectives and opinions, I can tell you that Baptists are on the right end of the spectrum.  In fact, anyone who does not take the bible seriously cannot survive as a leader in Texas Baptist life.  Oddly many of the strong leaders in the group formed to protect us have lost their influence due to actions taken and statements made which were contrary to the ethical and biblical standards we hold in Texas.  To be fair, there has been more than a few outside of that group that fell by the wayside as well.

The group formed to protect us actually divided us.  Now there are two Texas conventions of Baptists.  Most of the churches and believers are not different enough that anyone would notice, but the wedges were driven deep by leaders who sounded alarms instead of reaching out in grace and love.  The Baptist General Convention of Texas would be almost twice as strong as it is today had not this “cure” been offered to us.

Why am I writing this now?  We have just selected a new Executive Director to be voted on by our governing board.  His name is David Hardage.  He was once pastor of First Baptist Sulphur Springs.  That church has long been regarded as a strong evangelistic church.  It is as mainstream as they come in Texas Baptist life.  David is the leader that I have been waiting to see for many years.  I have no knowledge of him ever having participated in the divisive politics of these past years.  I only know him as a preacher, a soul winner, and a man who reaches out in all directions to all kinds of people.

A few years ago, I allowed myself to be nominated as one of the vice presidents of the BGCT.  I was elected.  I did so because I was afraid that countless other pastors like myself were going to allow the BGCT ship to sink while we watched from the shore.  I was desperate for a time when those who had hated the fray and longed for a day beyond politics to come to step forward and reclaim our cooperative efforts.  In my opinion, David Hardage represents that opportunity.  He has a respectful and cooperative history with all elements in Baptist life.  His predecessor in his position was a good step in that direction, but in my view did not represent the broad center of Texas Baptist life as well as Hardage will.

So for my members at Crestview who are asking “So what does this matter to us?”  For us this means that the core values of the vast majority of Texas Baptists are secure in our educational institutions and in our training and support opportunities.  We neither need to be right wing or left wing radicals.  We need to be humble loving servants of the Lord who take Scripture seriously and believe it to be divinely inspired.  We also need the humility to accept and work with those who may see some things differently than we do.  Jesus said it best, “He who is not against us, is for us.” (Mark 9:40)   I am praying that we will finally understand what Jesus meant by those words.

Dan Wooldridge

Someone once asked one of America’s prominent millionaires when they would have enough millions to feel they had plenty.  Without hesitation the millionaire answered, “When I make the next one.”  His meaning was clearly intended as a way of saying “never will there be enough.”  The recent NBA strike says more about American society than most of us would like to think.  Just as this group of spoiled millionaires who make millions throwing balls through hoops and endorsing tennis shoes cannot seem to be paid enough, countless others fall into the trap of the rich farmer in a parable of Jesus.  You will recall that he had a bumper crop and decided he needed a bigger barn.  I was driving around our area the other day and was looking at our homes in Central Texas with new eyes.  You must understand that the vast majority of the homes in the town that I grew up in would not nearly bring 100,000 dollars.  A plurality would bring closer to 50,000 dollars.  I sometimes feel a little guilty about my 2000 square foot home when I think about the places I have lived and served over the years.  I had a thought.  What if Americans deliberately chose to live more simply so that they could invest more of their resources in things that bring about positive change?  Did you know that many young Christians in America are doing just that?  They are realizing that discipleship and sacrifice go together.  My wife and I have been told countless times that we qualify for more house than we currently have.  Mortgage companies contact us and tell us we could readily move up insofar as our lodging is concerned.  We are not interested.  I would rather be in a position to give with greater generosity than to “build a bigger barn.”   I know that almost sounds contradictory to the American way of things, but somehow I think that is what Jesus had in mind for us.  Don’t take my word for it.  Listen to Jesus in Luke 12:15 - 21.

Dan Wooldridge

Several years ago a movie was made depicting a terrible storm in the waters of the Northeastern United States and titled the killer storm as a perfect storm.  The idea being that conditions were right for a storm of incredible power.  I want to use that term in a positive way.

Sometimes a church can get into a perfect storm of growth and development.  Just as a storm is enhanced by different temperatures currents and high and low pressure systems.  Churches have factors that enhance them to grow dramatically.  I want to list a few and see if any of these things are true at the church where you serve or where I serve.

1. A growing population in the immediate area.

2. A drive path with heavy traffic passing by the church property

3. Attractive grounds and parking lots visible from the drive path

4. Capability to communicate with those who pass by changeable message board or sign

5. Great unity within the church

6. Staff stability and credibility and strong lay leaders and teachers

7. An atmosphere of prayer and praise within the worship services

8. Greeting carried on both outside and inside the church

9. Adequate space for growth

10. Outstanding music and clear biblical messages

It is not so much the order of these things that matters as the ingredients.  This is quite a recipe for growth.  It points toward the possibility of a perfect storm of growth.

Dan Wooldridge

We are just completing the follow up campaign on our newest building.  Because of the interest and excitement of our people we included an expanded vision in this campaign.  We hope to transform our oldest space to bring our entire campus up to a new standard set by our previous renovations and our newest building.  As always, when you do such a campaign, some people get a little frustrated with the emphasis on giving.  As I said in a previous post, I seldom preach on giving.  I never preach exclusively on giving even in a campaign time such as we just finished.  I see giving as the outgrowth of everything that is happening in the hearts of God’s people.  I truly would love never to need to have a campaign.  I know beyond doubt that we would not have to if every Christian tithed.  In fact we would not even need every Christian to tithe.  We would only need those who regularly attend to tithe.  A little known fact about campaigns to build or renovate buildings is that they impress upon some people for the first time the need to be better stewards.  Many of them begin tithing for the first time in the face of some great challenge.  Even if we did not do building campaigns, we would need to do something like them from time to time to wake up those who see giving as everyone else’s responsibility.  Giving is as much a part of discipleship as anything we do.  The bible says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good works.”  Could anyone reasonably suggest that encouraging people to support ministries and missions is not a worthy cause for “spuring one another on?”  Let me close with a parable.

A man goes to the doctor for a routine physical.  The doctor pokes and prods on him.  All at once the man says “ouch”.  To which the doctor says, “We have a problem.  It is not supposed to hurt there.” 

When someone is challenged to give and the challenge is painful just remember:  It is not supposed to hurt there.   Remember the rich young ruler.  He was asked to give up all that he had.  “Ouch!”  At least that was his response.

Dan Wooldridge