From the Vineyard Newsletter on 12/9: The Great Commission-Part 4

For the last several weeks I have been focused on our role in fulfilling the Great Commission. The first week we talked about the importance of having a salvation prayer list for those whom we wish to see come to salvation in Jesus Christ. I hope you shared your with us, so we can pray along with you. Week 2 I shared about praying for God to stir our own hearts with a passion for the lost. Then last week I shared about the power of inviting people to church. 

One of the ways that we as a church partner with you is to create events that you can invite your unchurched friends to. These special events are created to make it easy for you to bring people and to have fun. Our two biggest events are the Brooksville BBQ in October that brings close to 2,000 people to our doorstep and the Candlelight Services on Christmas Eve which bring in close to 600 people. Both of these events are as safe, fun, family-friendly events that anyone can invite a friend to. We also participate in Christmas Parade every year not only with a parade float and walkers, but also as the biggest parking venue for the event. Giving us a chance to hand out bottled water and invites to Christmas Eve. In that single event we get our name out to over 200 carloads of people and some 10,000 onlookers. It is a great way to reach out to our community.   

The greatest challenge in these events is getting church members to help us put on these events. The lost come in groves. The unchurched love these events! On Christmas Eve the unchurched outnumber our members. What we need is for church members to come and be a smiling face. For church members to come and help us with hosting, or with the worship, or ushering, or making sandwiches, or handing out bottles of water. That requires a little sacrifice on our part. If you hand out water, you may not get the best seat at the parade. If you invite people to come to Christmas Eve, it will probably mean your celebration will start after you make your guests feel welcome, and you have said a long heartfelt goodbye. 

Becoming evangelistic, and fulfilling the Great Commission, are by nature selfless, sacrificial, and inconvenient. It won’t happen without great passion for Jesus and his mission to seek and save the lost. So we must pray, and we must step out in faith. I hope you will show up on Christmas Eve, with a lots of unsaved and/or de-churched friends, family, and neighbors. Services are 4:00 and 6:00 pm.  

 

Grace and peace,

Hal

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 3)

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 3) -OR- The Authority of the Kingdom

Last week as I wrapped-up the second part of The Case for Kingdom Theology, I said that if we accept the premise that the gospel does need a kingdom centered definition the implications of a kingdom centered gospel also include the need to flesh out what is meant by the rule and reign of God. Namely, what does it mean for the the rule and reign of God to be already present (inaugurated) but not fully realized?

In my association, the Vineyard, these are common terms used to contrast statements by Jesus like, “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Luke 11.20) and the experiences of praying for the sick that do not get healed. It is not capitulating to defeat or spirtualizing a lack of faith, but rather the recognition that even Paul prayed for a throne to be removed that wasn’t and that some of his friends took more medicinal routes to dealing with their ailments (1 Timothy 5.23). While this is not the primary intent behind the doctrine of the now and not yet it does become a simple but profound explanation that shrinks the divide between cessationist objections and pentecostal insistence. However there must be more to the idea of the now and not yet of the kingdom if we are to justify refining the gospel in a kingdom-centric way.    

For the sake of clarification, this is NOT to be confused with the concept of Kingdom Now theology or Dominion theology or Christian reconstructionalism, or anything like that. This is not advocating that we can bring the kingdom of God about, or that we will clean up the whole earth before Jesus’ return to vanquish his enemies. This is a statement of Jesus’ indisputable authority as present in the current age and in the age to come.  

The rule and reign of God is evidenced in this present world because Jesus Christ is able to set free the captives, not only in salvation, but from the present temptation, sin, disease, and the demonic.  It also means that he has control over nature, the earth, time, and even space. These last things being generally accepted to varying degrees by most modern believers even if they accept a cessationist worldview (i.e. The idea that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased with the Apostles).  Yet, even if you believe that the demonic has ceased to play a role in our world, then you would have to conclude that demons were vanquished by the authority of Christ, making the point that the rule and reign of Christ is both now and not yet. Now because some principal elements of the rule and reign of Christ are present leading people to salvation, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer, the power to resist temptation and sin and not yet when we acknowledge that not everyone has victory, that temptation and sin overtake us all at some time, that sin and disease, and even death has not been dealt the final blow.  So we wait as does all of creation for that final day when all is to be revealed (Romans 8.19).

This theology of the now and not yet of the kingdom is not limited to charismatic circles, nor to any specific eschatology. George Eldon Ladd who first put forth the idea of the inaugurated kingdom in his book The Gospel of the Kingdom was not charismatic, was a dispensationalist, and held a classical premillennial viewpoint. However, looking back over the last fifty-four years, his little 140 page book has been the catalyst for numerous discussions on the kingdom of God as the rule and reign of God, as a life realized, as a demand, and as something yet to come. Dr. Ladd did not make all the conclusions put forth in this series of posts. He did, however, realize the centrality of the kingdom to understanding the message of Jesus and insisted that it needed to return to the center of our understanding of the gospel. That is the pursuit that I am most engaged in. How do we do that? Even if you do not agree with the more charismatic points of these blog posts, of if you hold a more dispensational viewpoint. A common understanding of the the authority of Christ should move us toward a more kingdom centered gospel. It demands that we see his role as the means by which we have received good news, making our need secondary to his rule and his reign. 

Next week’s post will focus on the bigger challenge of  eschatology and probably the most difficult post for those whose minds are already made up. However, those pan-theology folks (those who believe it will all pan-out in the end) may yet enjoy the undefined (or maybe unrefined) nature of the post. My eschatology has gone from certain to very much in process as I am working out my conclusions about kingdom theology and the resulting kingdom eschatology.       

Acts 2: The Launch of God's Renewed People.

I regularly get asked to articulate my position on Acts 2 since I am do not characterize myself as a Pentecostal but rather an Empowered Evangelical.  This is something have I have done often on this blog, nonetheless, here is a link to my new series on the book of Acts entitled: The Ordinary Church. I hope you enjoy the series and follow along: http://hernandovineyard.com/component/preachit/message/launching-the-renewed-people-of-god-a.html?Itemid=

Naturally Supernatural

When people find out that I am planting a new church in Brooksville, they always want to know what kind of church is it. When I tell them that it is a Vineyard Church most have not heard of a Vineyard and if they know anything at all they often try and pigeonhole it as a Pentecostal or Charismatic church, and they are confused when I am tell them that we are neither. Then I proceed to explain that we are an empowered evangelical church. Meaning we embrace the power of God as for today but that our theology is evangelical more than Pentecostal or Charismatic. Those big words just don’t do much for anyone but a theologian. So now I just say, we are a naturally supernatural church.

What is naturally supernatural? It often gets thrown around as a buzzword in some circles, especially in mine, but it is an ideal of pursuing God, who is supernatural, in ways that are free from hype, spiritual superiority, and religiosity. It means that there is enough weird stuff that happens when the divine intersects the mortal without me having to become weird in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit and do the works of Jesus. It means the kingdom of God can come into a room and bring order rather than chaos. It is a value of letting God be extraordinary with out us needing to be anything but ordinary. Unapologetically, this is the way that I lead the Hernando Vineyard. We don’t need to get worked into a lather to experience the power of God. In fact, I believe that this often keeps people from following God’s leading, when their flesh is whipped into a frenzy, and all they can hear is the dull-roar of someone shouting in tongues.

Granted there is some pretty weird stuff in the Bible: Dry bones that grow flesh on them, and Balaam’s talking donkey, Prophets walking around naked, and what about the serpent in the garden? It’s true that God does some weird stuff. At the same time, we have Jesus’ example, of praying for the sick with hot one-liners like, See! Or Come out! We have Jesus sending away the crowd so that he can pray without the crowd hovering. All I am really saying is that God does not need me to act strange for him to get glory.

Why does that matter? Well the majority of the Christian church worldwide believes that God heals, that he saves, that he delivers and that God does all he has ever done. This is not a Vineyard thing, it is Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Alliance, Orthodox and Reformed, et al. We pray for the sick, we pray for help in times of need, we sometimes see answers that we cannot explain apart from those prayers and we call it a miracle. The more often we ask, trust and believe God for those things, the more often we seem to see them. Other times we receive not because we ask not.

The only way I know how to categorize this church is naturally supernatural. Not Pentecostal, not liberal, not fundamentalist. Just Christian. If you are looking for Pentecostal we aren’t it. On the other hand, if you are looking for fundamentalist you need to know we believe that the Holy Spirit did not retire when he wrote the New Testament, and we believe in the freedom of the believer, apart from sin management. But we are not liberal either, we believe the Bible, and we are trying to live it in a way that is naturally supernatural. We are just ordinary people serving an extraordinary God. I hope you will join us.