Wednesday, November 30, 2011

What Does God Want the Church to do?


What is the church here for? What is God’s purpose of the church? Why are we called together? These are pretty basic questions, and Rick Warren dealt with them years ago in his great book The Purpose Driven Church. Yet, as I have had occasion to visit many churches, and talk to pastors, and their people, I have found that way too many folks are confused about God’s purpose for the church, and some people are just plain wrong about it. Let me share some things that might help to clear up confusion, and perhaps make some think again about what God wants the church to be and to do.

I believe there are five parts to a Biblical purpose for the church. These all come straight from scripture. Most written church purposes include some of them, but I have seldom seen a church that proclaimed all five as the reason it exists.

The Purpose of the Church in Five Parts:

Part 1 – The church exists to glorify God. That is the purpose of all creation. All through the Psalms we are reminded of this fact. In particular, the church exists to proclaim the glory of God, our Savior. This part of the purpose of the church overarches the other parts. All the rest are ways that we glorify God. Everything the church is and does should be designed to give glory to the Lord.

Part 2 – The purpose of the church is to reach out to those who don’t know Jesus with the message of salvation and discipleship. Jesus’ last words on earth make this very clear:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 (NIV)


In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus told his followers to make disciples of all nations. Notice that he didn’t say to go get people to make decisions; instead he said to make disciples. It is not enough to push people into a moment of decision. We are to lead people into a life of following Christ. In Acts 1:8 Jesus told those who were on hand for his ascension to be his witnesses everywhere they went. We are to reach out by simply telling people what Jesus has done in our lives and showing them what it means to be a disciple as we reflect his love and hope on those around us.

Part 3 – The purpose of the church is to grow up to be like Jesus in our thinking, standards and maturity. Take a look at Ephesians 4:11-13:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephes. 4:11-16 (NIV)


Seems to me that this means we all have a lot of learning and growing to do, and that we must never stop doing what needs to be done to become more like Jesus.

Part 4 – The purpose of the church is to grow together in the fellowship of Christian love for each other.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34-35 (NIV)

Christ-followers have to learn to love each other. Sometimes that is a breeze, and sometimes it is nearly impossible, because we can be impossible. The love that we share must be a love that others can see and desire to experience. It is also a love that wants as many people as possible to be part of it. The church is to be an open, inviting, fellowship, not a closed clique or club.

Part 5 – The purpose of the church is to lift up those in need simply because they are in need and we have help to offer.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:34-40 (NIV)


This part of the purpose of the church is often missing in written purpose statements. Sometimes, it is thought to be included with the “reach out” part, but I think it stands alone. The church is to help people with out expecting anything in return. If you don’t think Jesus is serious about this read, the whole context of the quoted passage: Matthew 25: 31-46. He is not messing around. He means for us to do it.

The temptation for a congregation and for a pastor is to pick the part of the purpose that they find the easiest, and concentrate on that. That is the reason that there are a lot of small churches that love each other deeply, but don’t do much to bring other people to the Lord. Other churches feel like a school where people have piles of notebooks from all the church courses they have taken. The members do a lot of training, but they never get into the battle. Still others do a lot for their communities, but they have become little more than simply another charity that does good, instead of being a place with more to give to those in need than a warm meal or free clothes. And some churches like to count the rear ends in the seats, but that is all that happens. People come to those churches for the “show”, but there is nothing beyond “the show” for them.

A friend of mine says the purpose of the church is to “grow more and better disciples with emphasis on the more.” He finds that churches tend to concentrate on things that are comfortable. Reaching out to the unchurched is often uncomfortable. Most churches tend to be more enthusiastic about the other parts, so they have to be encouraged to reach out. He may well be correct. I think a church needs to be and do the whole package to the glory of God. Is your church doing all these: reaching out, growing up, growing together, and lifting up? Why not? Small church, large church, and everything in between, all of us, need to live the whole calling of God. The church was God’s idea. It was paid for by his Son’s sacrifice. So it stands to reason that we should do church his way. Are we?

Friday, November 11, 2011

What Now?


It has been a year and a half since I resigned as pastor in Kokomo. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out what God wants me to do with this next chapter of my life. The Lord drew my attention to a verse of scripture that has become my theme:

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God,
till I declare your power to the next generation.” Psalm 71:18a (NIV)


This is exactly what I want to do.  Accordingly, I have looked at several possibilities:

1. I looked at becoming a specialist in helping churches as an interim pastor. I did an interim last fall and enjoyed my time with the church in Walla Walla, Washington. To do interim work on a full-time basis is tough, because you never have a real home. You move every nine months or so. That becomes problematic on several levels. I don’t think that it would work for our family as a permanent way of life. However, doing an interim from time to time could be possible.

2. I had hopes of overseeing a group of churches. I spent a long time going through an extensive candidating process with an area church fellowship, even becoming a finalist, but someone else was chosen, so that door was closed.

3. I asked the Lord if He was done with me in ministry and should I look for a secular job? I considered this carefully, but I’m trained and experienced in ministry. Even though I have a master’s degree in business, I have used it solely in the context of ministry. Besides, the secular job world was not crying out for this old pastor.

4. What I would most like to do is to consult and coach pastors and churches. This would directly fulfill Ps. 71:18a, and I think I could help churches that are plateaued or declining see what they need to do to get moving in a positive direction. My age would help me challenge older church members to get behind younger pastors who want to make the changes necessary for a church to reach the next generation. Making a living at consulting and coaching is not a very easy proposition. I’ll continue to seek ways I can do this, but I won’t rely on it as a way to put bread on the table.

5. Perhaps, the most obvious thing for me to do is to return to pastoring somewhere. I put my name out to churches that are looking for pastors, and I had preliminary interviews with six churches and been invited to candidate by five of them. To each I have said no. Not because they were bad situations. All of them held good possibilities. As a matter of fact, two of the churches are larger than any of the churches I have led. I just did not feel that God was calling me to any of them. This past week, when I turned down the last two of these churches, it finally occurred to me that God doesn’t want me to pastor anywhere at this time.

6. Then what am I going to do? What has God led me to do? For the last six months or so I have been working as the administrator for Tina Houser Ministries. I kind of fell into it, because Tina is my wife, her ministry has been growing at an explosive pace, and she needed some help. I’m doing things that I haven’t done very much (bookkeeping), learning to do some new stuff (website maintenance), and getting to brag about my wife (promoting her books and her workshops). I get to travel with her (and lug her books and stuff around), and see her shine as she shares her heart for ministry to children. This is what I believe God wants me to do now. It is a means by which I can make an impact on the next generation. This is a part-time job, so I’ll continue to seek ways to serve the church. Actually, the thing that has made this a hard decision is that it lacks financial security, but Tina and I both believe that God is directing us to do this. In a couple of weeks we are moving to Woodstock, Georgia, at least, temporarily. We will get to be near our son and his wonderful wife. We’ll get to be grandparents to our beautiful grandtwins (see above). In addition, I hope to do some preaching, and I’ll have time to do some consulting or coaching, should those opportunities present themselves. Finally, for the first time in 38 years I will be involved in a local church without being on the pastoral staff. (By the way, I intend to be some pastor’s big supporter!)

So, if you see Tina anywhere in the world, you will probably see me behind her book table. And, if your church can use my help, I am very available. Thank you to all those who have been praying for me through this time. You have been a rock for me. Please keep looking for this blog. I plan to continue to use this platform to share with you all and to proclaim God’s power to the next generation.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

My Mother – A Good Woman

At 2:30 on Sunday, October 23rd, my mother drew her last breath, 93 years, 4 months and 11 days after her first one. She was a great mother, a fine wife, a hard worker and I loved her deeply. Wanda Houser, nee Holloway, was born just outside the tiny Kansas town of Anson to a tenet farmer and his wife. She and her twin sister were welcomed by five older brothers. From the beginning she was a survivor. The baby twins were victims of the swine flu epidemic that swept the country in 1918. Mom’s sister died, but Mom recovered. As a child she loved school, and saw education as her escape from the poverty she knew. Soon she realized that if things were to be different for her, she would have to leave Anson and discover the rest of the world. The school in her little town only went to the 10th grade, so at age 15 she went to the town of Wellington to finish high school. Going to school by day, this teenager served a family as a live-in babysitter to support her education ambition. Her dream was to become a teacher, but to do that she would have to attend college and that obstacle proved to be a financial impossibility, so she found a new dream. She chose to continue learning at a business college and received training to be a secretary. To manage this, she had to move to the relatively large city of Wichita and work as a live-in caretaker of an elderly lady to make ends meet. By age 20 she had her training, a good job and she was living in the city.

Soon she found love and married Gene Farris. Not long thereafter, along came my sister, Glenda Jo (Jody). A few months later, Mom found herself carrying her second child. At age 25 all her dreams seemed to be coming true. Suddenly, that all changed when she got the call every wife fears most. Her husband suddenly died on a business trip in Kansas City. Instead of being a working wife and mother of two, she became a widow and had a miscarriage. But mom survived. Her father, who was quite elderly by then, told her that if she found a place where he could keep his cow, he and my grandmother would come and help her “take care of that girl.” So Mom bought a house and some extra lots on what was then the edge of the city. She continued her work for the vice-president (and later the attorney) of the Wichita Bank for Cooperatives and raised my sister with Grandma’s help.

Four years later my mom found love again. She met my dad, Veryle Houser, at a small hamburger cafĂ©, and after a year’s courtship married him. Four years later along came Claude Raymond (yours truly, Ray). My mother loved her job, but she wasn’t so much a working mother as she was a mother who worked. I always knew that I was her priority. She went the extra mile to be involved in my life. When I was in grade school and they needed a room mother to put on the little classroom parties for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day, my mom took time off work to be there. When I was sick, mom would manage to get away from work to make sure that I was cared for. I don’t think mom ever missed a ball game, Boy Scout event, or anything else that was important to me when I was small.

Mom’s belief in the importance of education extended to her kids. Neither my sister nor I ever considered doing anything after high school except go to college. The question about college was not if, it was where. Mom and Dad made great sacrifices to see that Jody and I were the first in the family to get that college education which elluded Mom. When many of my friends at the small Christian college I attended had to sweat out how they would pay for each semester and finished school thousands of dollars in debt, I could relax because my folks paid for it all. I worked through high school to save for college, but I got to use the money I had saved for student trips to Rome, Athens, Israel, and Peru. At college the pay for the few hours I worked each week was used for personal items and my dating life.

Jody fulfilled Mom’s dream by becoming a teacher, and I became a pastor. Both of us extended our educations beyond Mom’s dream by getting master’s degrees in our fields (to be precise, I earned two). Mom was proud of us. On the day after I graduated from seminary, she rode with me from Anderson, Indiana, where I went to school, to the Louisville, Kentucky area where I was to be married a few days later. Mom, who seldom shared her feelings, said to me, “I don’t know what I am supposed to do now. You and Jody are through school, and now you will both have your own families. I feel like I have done what I was supposed to do.” Her mission was accomplished. She was proud and satisfied.

A couple of years later she retired and began traveling with Dad. For the next 15 or so years they covered all the contiguous states and part of Canada. It was great for her, because she got to satisfy her curiosity and learn many wonderful things. Finally, her body began to betray her and her mobility was limited. Her last trip was to attend my son’s wedding in 2003. I know the trip was very uncomfortable for her, but she would not be denied the chance to be there. The last few years of her life my Dad was her caregiver. He helped her with everything and pushed her wheelchair wherever she needed to go. They celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary last September.

My mom had a good life. She was a survivor …. more than that, she was a hero. She overcame a very difficult beginning and tough times along the way to build the life she hoped for. She passed on her love for learning, her sense of fair play, and her devotion to her spouse and family to Jody and I.

I am going to miss you, Mom. I love you. You hated the word good-bye, so I will say what you usually said: so long, I’ll see you later.