Adventist Review: Title


S T O R Y

BY JERE WEBB

FTER 27 YEARS OF BEING A Seventh-day Adventist pastor, I have retired. Our family moved to a new location, and we began the process of looking for a church home. It was quite an experience to walk into a church, not as the pastor, but as a potential member.

For several weeks we visited different churches in the area. On the way home my wife and I repeatedly asked ourselves, What are we looking for? What are the essential ingredients of the church we will now join, since employment is no longer involved?

I appreciate good preaching; but it isn't on my "A List." It's on my "B List." So are good music, friendly people, solid finances, and a functional building. All these things and many others enhance or thwart a church's energy for God; but I am looking for even more basic ingredients. The church I join has to bear some resemblance to the church in the book of Acts. Here's where I've been running into difficulty, not with my "B List" but with my "A List."

Every week I meet many wonderful, dedicated Christians. People are friendly, preachers are prepared and earnest, the buildings are comfortable, and I have heard some excellent music. Many of the members want their congregations to grow. They make an obvious effort to be inclusive and encourage us to return and join them. But my sense is that many congregations are not about being a "New Testament" church.

So what's missing? And do these missing ingredients have anything to do with the lack of real growth in the North American church?

I'm not talking about stylistic differences, such as the differences between a Ford or a Chevrolet. Neither am I looking for perfection. Anything we humans are involved in will be flawed. That's not the problem (thank God for His grace). The "A List" that I'm looking for includes the absolute essentials of the Christian faith.

What's Your Passion?
First of all, I'm looking for a congregation that has a passion for Jesus. A few months ago I was part of a group that spent an entire night in prayer and study of the book of Acts. What we read felt quite removed from today's institutional church. Christianity is a passion about a Person. It is Someone to love, not just something to believe.

My heart is in the cause that Adventism, at its best, represents. However, in listening to some sermons on Sabbath morning, I often get the impression that our passion is about something, not Someone. Often our focus is Adventism rather than Jesus. We seem to be Adventists first and Christians second. It ought to be the other way around. We worship not the Sabbath, but the Lord of the Sabbath. We are part of a great Christian community that includes people of all denominations. I'm embarrassed as I hear constant references to Adventism rather than to Jesus. Maybe we need to stop counting accessions to church membership that come from faithful Christians of other denominations, and focus our energies on the real target of the Great Commission: winning lost people for the kingdom of God.

One positive note: There is a Christian radio station sponsored by our church here that is right on target. This station is contemporary in its musical format and has become a focal point for Christians of all faiths. Announcements are regularly aired for activities being sponsored by many different denominations. When I listen to this station I get the sense that we are all part of God's great orchestra. Hallelujah! Seventh-day Adventists have an important instrument to play that God can use to bring a richness and a truthfulness to His kingdom sound on earth, but we are not the entire orchestra.

What About Prayer?
Second, I'm looking for a church that takes prayer seriously. It's easy for us in this culture to become practicing deists. We buy in so heavily to scientific logic, and cause and effect thinking, that God is essentially left out of life.

Not long ago I attended a pastors' conference in Van Nuys, California, at the Church on the Way. There I sensed how seriously Pastor Jack Hayford and hundreds of others who were present approach the Lord in prayer. For them this was not just a one-week high-a prayer revival or mountaintop experience. Their orientation to God and His power made mine seem secular by comparison. I was convicted of the shallowness of my own prayer life. I felt God inviting me to move closer to Him. I heard Him repeatedly say to me, "You have not because you ask not!" I was reminded that there are many things that a loving heavenly Father wants to do for His children that He will not do unless we ask Him. I had so bought into scientific naturalism that, at least to a degree, God had been left out of my life.

We don't read in Acts about any special committees being called when Peter was thrown into prison. It says, "Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him" (Acts 12:5, NIV).

When God miraculously delivered Peter, and he showed up at the prayer meeting, they were as surprised as some of us would be at this departure from the norm. But at least they were having a prayer meeting. In order to be an authentic Christian church we must have a real prayer connection with the Father. I've been searching for a church where there is more than token praying.

What a Fellowship!
My next essential from the book of Acts is highlighted in chapter 2: "They devoted themselves . . . to the fellowship. . . . All the believers were together. . . . Every day they continued to meet together. . . . They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts" (verses 42-47, NIV). I am looking for a church that experiences the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Coming together for an hour or two a week is not enough.

At church we tend to wear masks. "How are you?" "I'm fine. How are you?" "Fine, thank you." In the home group, masks can come off, and walls of loneliness that are as carefully guarded as the one in Berlin used to be can be broken down.

In order to be a Christian church there must be a depth of caring and sharing that goes beyond Sabbath morning. In a Christian fellowship people eat together, play, pray, and serve together. Christian service isn't something organized by committee action. Ideally it flows naturally from God's caring people as they become aware of the human needs around them.

Meeting regularly in homes brings a natural raising of awareness about our common joys and burdens. With proper leadership the focus turns outward in service and mirrors the ministry of Christ and the New Testament church. I've been looking for a church where people are involved in the community-meeting human needs. This is in radical contrast to the "holy huddle," in which we keep to ourselves and try to remain blissfully unaware of "the world" and its problems.

The Disciplined Life
In the Acts church there was a natural process of evangelism and discipling that today's building-bound, institutional church can only dream about. "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" (Acts 4:31, NIV). This text recognizes the power of the Holy Spirit to shake things up.

Questions for Reflection or for Use in Your Small Group

1. How realistic is it to expect today's church to reflect the spirit and passion of the New Testament church?
2. What concrete things could your congregation adopt that would make participation in church more exciting and rewarding?
3. Whose responsibility is it to see that the local church is making a difference in its society?
4. What negative reactions might possibly occur if some of your members became more passionate about their ministries?

I want to be in a church where lives are being radically changed by God's power. We can't just join the church and defend the status quo. The Father's will is going to chip away everything in us that doesn't look like Jesus.

The presence of the Holy Spirit will also result in new births-new members of God's family. A healthy body produces children, just as naturally as children are born into a home where two parents love each other. What a difference it makes in a family to have little children to care for. The atmosphere is radically different than it is in the nursing home, or even the country club. Having new Christians in our midst is positively invigorating.

Many of our churches remind me of a group struggling to push a huge Greyhound bus. The motor isn't running-there is no power; but we all faithfully try to lend a hand pushing it. Only a small number can get their hands directly on the bus, so most of the people sadly trudge along behind, watching the efforts of a few. This is not the church of the book of Acts.

God-centered Worship
Wouldn't it be a tragedy if the very people who claim such insight into the books of Daniel and Revelation (which are all about worship) would fail to experience the worship renewal that is going on right now throughout the evangelical world? I want to participate in a church where people come together to worship the great God of heaven.

I'm not talking about a dull, boring ritual to be endured; that's not what the "patience of the saints" is all about. When people who have a passion for Jesus come together with the freedom to express themselves, every Sabbath can be a celebration. If we take prayer seriously, if we are experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, if there is an authentic fellowship of believers, it will have an electrifying effect upon our corporate worship.

We have witnessed the enthusiasm that "true believers" exhibit at political conventions. We attend sporting events and grow hoarse cheering for the New England Patriots, the Los Angeles Lakers, or the New York Yankees. Yet we certainly have a higher regard for God than we do for any politician or sports team.

So why have so many of us let our culture rob us of an opportunity to express our passion for Jesus? We are like the proverbial husband whose wife asked him, "Sweetheart, do you love me?"

His answer: "Of course I love you, and I shouldn't have to keep telling you. If I ever stop loving you, I'll let you know."

With worship renewal going on all around us, many Seventh-day Adventists seem content to debate the topic rather than participate in it. I don't want to argue about worship; I don't want to debate the subject; I want to do it. I want to be part of a church where people are free to worship God within the scriptural guidelines of order and decency.

So this is my list of essentials-my "A List":