When I have the privilege of speaking, I often make a point of stressing that there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular when it comes to the Church, the body of Christ. Often there is the misconception that those who are called to full-time Christian work, whether stateside or overseas, are engaged in more sacred efforts than those who labor daily in the workforce or to raise a family.
In fact, the term “secular” indicates that an individual does not believe God to be foundational or central. To be “secular” doesn’t necessitate that you are an atheist or agnostic. It simply means that God has been pushed to the edge of consideration. By that definition, “secular individuals” engage in daily pursuits from priorities and philosophies that reflect a human-centered agenda as opposed to a God-centered one.
In The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer summarizes it nicely when he states,
“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it.”
The “Why” of life can be seen in:
The Westminster Shorter Catechism
“Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
1 Corinthians 10:31
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
Two final thoughts:
Those engaged in overseas mission work need believers in the labor force to support their gospel-centered efforts.
“Every believer is called to pray for the nations and support the cause of missions, but not every believer is called to leave their homeland and go overseas. Some will help send and support, and others will go, tell and serve.” – John Piper
A great resource to assist you and your family in the sacred fundamentals of the Christian faith is New City Catechism, a collaborative effort of The Gospel Coalition and Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.
The Lord has blessed Empowering Action with an exceedingly godly and capable in-country team in regards to operations, which means that my role is overwhelmingly that of storyteller in the United States. This is a role that I relish, as it allows me to proclaim God’s wondrous deeds (Prov. 26:7), and, in addition, years ago I read that,
“The excellent leader is the steward-in-chief of the organization’s story…Leadership comes down to protecting the story, bringing others into the story, and keeping the organization accountable to the story. The leader tells the story, over and over again, refining it, updating it and driving it home.”
A recent story telling opportunity enabled me to reconnect with two former members of my junior high ministry, now in college. As I witnessed their leadership within their on-campus ministry and strength of their personal walk with the Lord, I was grateful to the Lord for allowing me to play a role in their spiritual development, resulting in a desire to “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:10)
I found myself reflecting on the words of the Apostle John in 3 John 1:3-4,
“It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
3 John is the shortest book in the bible. It was written about 60 years after Jesus had ascended to heaven. It was a letter to a man named Gaius. It is believed that the Apostle John had probably led Gaius to the Lord, and Gaius had taken off in his faith, with a church meeting in his home. John writes to commend and encourage Gaius and the church members, calling them his “children.”
Were they literally his children?
His readers were “children of God,” as John 1:12 promises that “to all who receive Jesus Christ, to those who believe in His name, He gives them right to become children of God.”
But they were not John’s literal physical offspring. However, John, as their spiritual overseer, viewed them as his own spiritual children. He says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
After 20 years of student ministry, I can tell you that the greatest joy of ministry for me is not to teach the truth. It is not to even know that students understand the truth. The greatest joy in ministry is to see “my spiritual children” walk in the truth, by passionately living out God’s Word daily.
I can recall often standing before our students at the conclusion of a message, after having proclaimed the truth of God’s Word and saying,
“If you want to put a smile on my face, don’t raise my salary. Don’t give me a nicer office. Don’t increase my vacation time…Simply walk in the truth. There is no greater joy.”
The five-hour rule. Admired business leaders such as Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg all practice it. Despite extremely busy schedules, each sets aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) to read and learn.
Learning is essential for Christian leaders, and we would be wise to note this practice. However, a word of caution is in order.
Charles Spurgeon wisely counseled,
“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
In his book Leadership as an Identity Pastor Crawford Lorritts provides the following essential insights:
“As leaders we want to get things done; we want results. And we should! This gives us a bent toward the pragmatic. However, we need to make sure that the truths and approaches we import and adopt are not contaminated. They should be consistent with what the Scriptures teach. The Word of God should be the rule, the standard for everything we are and do. What we believe, how we think, and how we act should be governed by our biblical framework.”
“We must fight the encroaching secularization both of Christianity and Christian leadership in particular. As leaders we ought to be students of our culture, but we need to be discerning. We must learn to recognize worldviews and approaches that are human-centered rather than God-centered. Yes, by all means passionately search for principles and approaches that will help us advance His cause, but in the process let’s make sure that we edit our findings through the grid of the Word of God.”
Read to learn, in order to lead, but prioritize God’s Word in that you might “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)
After twenty years in ministry, I am constantly in search of analogies that can be used to help communicate that the truths contained in God’s Word. I’ve often found such object lessons sitting in DC traffic, by means of bumper stickers or vanity license plates…or in this case both. The above bumper sticker, affixed to the automobile of a proud atheist, addresses God’s gift of common grace.
Pastor John MacArthur provides a great explanation of this concept:
Common grace is a term theologians use to describe the goodness of God to all mankind universally. Common grace restrains sin and the effects of sin on the human race. Common grace is what keeps humanity from descending into the morass of evil that we would see if the full expression of our fallen nature were allowed to have free reign.
Scripture teaches that we are totally depraved—tainted with sin in every aspect of our being (Rom. 3:10–18). People who doubt this doctrine often ask, “How can people who are supposedly totally depraved enjoy beauty, have a sense of right and wrong, know the pangs of a wounded conscience, or produce great works of art and literature? Aren’t these accomplishments of humanity proof that the human race is essentially good? Don’t these things testify to the basic goodness of human nature?”
And the answer is no. Human nature is utterly corrupt. “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). Unregenerate men and women are “dead in … trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). 1
And yet human beings, though fallen in sin, retain a semblance of the “image of God” in which they were originally created (Gen. 9:6: 1 Cor. 11:7), and as result, God exercises such influence that even an unsaved individual is enabled to feel, love, care and perform good deeds toward his fellow man. And so, in response to the above bumper sticker, “Yes, God does work in the world even through the lives of people who don’t believe in Him, and have rejected the gift of salvation from their sins in the person and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, known as the gospel message.” (Rom. 5:8)
“The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 145:9)
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail” (Lamentations 3:22)
“[God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45)
“[God] is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35)
By God’s grace unbelievers can be altruistic and charitable. However followers of Christ have a calling higher than that of philanthropy. The greatest good comes in glorifying God, and making Him known amongst the nations. “Altruism is not the Gospel, but only a shadow of it.”2 And, as Eric Wright notes in “A Practical Theology of Missions,” failure to address spiritual poverty as well as physical poverty is not, in fact, missionary activity but only common grace philanthropy:
“Missionary activity that fails to focus on the proclamation of the gospel fails to be missionary. Philanthropy, perhaps; missions, no.”
Even notable atheists, such as Matthew Parris, have recognized and affirmed the benefits of Christians offering more than common grace charitable efforts:
“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”3
Common grace philanthropy is a gift from the Heavenly Father, but, far more important, is sustaining and saving grace found only in the person of Jesus Christ.
“For in [Christ Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:16, 19-20)
Years ago I heard Lon Solomon, Pastor of McLean Bible Church in Washington D.C., state that, other than the Bible itself, it is extremely important that Christians prioritize reading biographies of great historical men and women of God. Heeding this advice, I’ve found this to be particularly encouraging to my own walk with the Lord, having been inspired and equipped by:
– A Retrospect: The Story Behind My Zeal for Missions by Hudson Taylor
– When Others Shuddered: Eight Women Who Refused to Give Up by Janice Janosz – An Hour With George Muller by Charles Parsons – Found Faithful and Wounded Heroes by Elizabeth Skoglund
But heroes of the faith, whose lives, while imperfect, beacon “Follow me, as I follow Christ,” (1 Cor. 11:1) are not limited to the pages of Bible or centuries long ago, as exemplified by this statement from Francis Chan, an incredible man of God himself:
Recently I was asked, “Who is the most Spirit-filled person you know?” My response: Joni Eareckson Tada. A 1967 diving accident left then-seventeen-year-old Joni a quadriplegic. Lying in a hospital bed, she was filled with an overwhelming desire to end her life. The thought of spending the rest of her years paralyzed from the neck down and relying on others to care for her basic needs was staggering. But Joni did not end her life that day. Instead, she chose to surrender it to God. Little did she know that the Spirit of God would transform her into one of the godliest women ever to grace this earth. God gave her a humility and a love that enables her to look beyond her own pain and to see others’ hurts. She is a person who consistently “in humility count[s] others more significant” than herself (an embodiment of Philippians 2:3).
I don’t even know where to begin with all that she has done. While undergoing two years of rehabilitation after the accident, she spent many hours learning to paint with a brush held between her teeth. Her detailed paintings and prints are now highly sought after. Her international best-selling autobiography, Joni, was later made into a full-length feature film. She founded Joni and Friends in 1979 to increase Christian ministry to the disabled community throughout the world. The organization led to the establishment in 2007 of the Joni and Friends International Disability Center, which currently impacts thousands of families around the globe. Over the course of each week, more than a million people listen to her daily five-minute radio program, Joni and Friends. The organization she started serves hundreds of special-needs families through family retreats across the nation. Through Wheels for the World, wheelchairs are collected nationwide, refurbished by inmates in several correctional facilities, and then shipped and donated to developing nations where, whenever possible, physical therapists fit each chair to a disabled child or adult who is in need. As of 2008, Wheels for the World had cumulatively distributed 52,342 wheelchairs to 102 countries and trained hundreds of ministry and community leaders, including people with disabilities. In 2005, Joni Eareckson Tada was appointed to the Disability Advisory Committee of the U.S. State Department. She has worked with Dr. Condoleezza Rice on programs affecting disabled persons in the State Department and around the world. Joni has appeared twice on Larry King Live, sharing not only her Christian testimony but a biblical perspective on right-to-life issues that affect our nation’s disabled population. And on top of all that, Joni has written more than thirty-five books.
Yet it is not because of these accomplishments that I consider her the most Spirit-filled person I know. Actually, it has nothing to do with all she’s accomplished. It has to do with the fact that you can’t spend ten minutes with Joni before she breaks out in song, quotes Scripture, or shares a touching and timely word of encouragement. I have never seen the fruit of the Spirit more obviously displayed in a person’s life as when I am with Joni. I can’t seem to have a conversation with Joni without shedding tears. It’s because Joni is a person whose life, at every level, gives evidence of the Spirit’s work in and through her. (From Forgotten God: Reversing Our Neglect of the Holy Spirit)
Let me encourage you to first and foremost spend time daily in God’s word, but also supplement that spiritual diet with:
1. One of the books above or another of your choosing highlighting the historic heroes of the faith who “served God’s purpose in their generation.” (Acts 13:36)
This summer we had a number of visitors, who had previously invested time serving with EA, again carve out space, often in the midst of very busy summer schedules, to return to labor alongside our staff, as we serve the local church.
Two reasons come to mind:
1. There is joy in sacrificial service through “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Pastor John MacArthur alludes to the joy of Kingdom Work in his book, Alone with God, stating:
“Many of us come to God with personal pronouns in our prayers: I, me and my. We tell The Lord about our needs and problems without thinking of others in the body of Christ. But we need to be willing to sacrifice what seems best for ourselves because God has a greater plan for the whole.”
2. There is contentment in participation in the ongoing ministry of the local church as it “does good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of faith.” (Galatians 6:10)
Overwhelmingly, Empowering Action’s visiting service teams join in with existing ministry. They don’t come to do FOR the local church, but serve WITH the local body of Christ. This encourages both the American and national church, as well as dispels the notion of all solutions/resources/expertise originating in the U.S. and the falsely perceived need for the American to ride in on the white horse and save the day.
As I read this letter below from one such recent visitor, I could identify amongst his reflections this joy of sacrificial service and contentment from participation in the strategic efforts of the global church.
“I had a tremendous experience this year on my third trip to Dominican Republic with Empowering Action. This year was different for me because rather than serving with my own church from New Jersey, I had the opportunity to serve alongside two new churches as a member of the EA team. Throughout the service trip I had the pleasure of experiencing the strong relationship between the U.S. churches and EA’s local church partner – Iglesia de Convertidos a Cristo. As a result of this collaboration, I was able to interact with many great people of God. In addition, this fellowship gave me the opportunity to be able to grow in the gospel, while also serving and introducing new people to the Word of God. It was a pleasure to serve with EA’s staff and I look forward to the opportunity to return in the future”
Meet my friend Fany. EA in-country partners come in a variety of capacities and locations, and Fany is without a doubt a treasured EA ministry collaborator. I’ve had the unique pleasure to know her for over 7 years, not only as the group coordinator at a Dominican hotel that often hosts our visiting service teams, but also as a sister in Christ, with a passion for the Lord and a heart for her country. She is a true professional with a servant’s heart, and reminds me very much of JC Ryle’s description of those who are “ever adding grace to grace, faith to faith, and strength to strength.”
“Every time you meet them their hearts seems larger, and their spiritual stature taller and stronger. Every year they appear more, and feel more in their religion. They not only have good works to prove the reality of their faith, but they are zealous of them. They are not only do well, but they are unwearied in well doing.”
This made my visit to Fany last week all the more enjoyable and encouraging. Often, when meeting with EA supporters or partners, I bring along, as an encouragement, a book that I’ve found beneficial in my own personal walk with the Lord. (Now truthfully I rarely hear any feedback, and occasionally I’ve joked about assembling a stealth repossession team to enable some regifting.) But Fany’s visit gave me hope! I had planned to zip quickly into her office, grab a lost item and be on my way. However, when I arrived she was ecstatic over having just completed a bible study lesson plan, based on a book I had recently passed along to her. She was beaming, about to make copies for her class, saying she couldn’t wait till Sunday! It brought a smile to my face, to see her truly consumed with joy, over the prospect of teaching others what she herself had learned. Isn’t that who Christ followers are called to be?
The psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:20, “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”
And 19th century theologian Albert Barnes said of this passage,
“The desire to know more of the commands of God acted continually on him, exhausting his strength, and overcoming him. He so longed for God that, in our language, ‘it wore upon him’ – as any ungratified desire does. It was not the possession of the knowledge of God that exhausted him; it was the intenseness of his desire that he might know more of God.”
That was the basis of Fany’s excitement: she knew more of God and was anxious for others to do likewise. This is the desire of EA, combating physical and spiritual poverty, or in the word’s of Jesus Himself: “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
In August 2016 Empowering Action partnered with Bay Shore Community Church and Homes of Hope (HOH) for installation of an initial shipping container conversion home. Below guest blogger, Patrick Staggs, President of HOH, shares his reflections on his recent trip, which was the culmination of a year, in which Patrick and friend Lance Manlove had been inspired to attempt something great for the Lord, and followed through in founding HOH. In doing so, they rejected what John Piper below identifies as the call to casual, comfortable, cultural Christianity, and instead are experiencing the thrill of Christ-honoring, Kingdom-building entrepreneurship.
“We can rest content in casual, convenient, cozy, comfortable Christian lives as we cling to the safety and security this world offers. We can coast through a cultural landscape marked by materialism, characterized by consumerism, and engulfed in individualism. We can assent to the spirit of this age and choose to spend our lives seeking worldly pleasures, acquiring worldly possessions, and pursuing worldly ambitions—all under the banner of cultural Christianity. Or we can decide that Jesus is worth more than this. We can recognize that he has created us, saved us, and called us for a much greater purpose than anything this world could ever offer us.” – John Piper, Risk is Right
Our recent week in the Dominican Republic was definitely a physical and emotional workout, while simultaneously serving as a spiritual battery charger. We created a plan for the container, and I expected the unexpected, as far as technical conversion, and knew we would get through the issues, and we did.
However, I did not expect the enormous amount of community support for the recipient’s family and the project itself. In fact, I had feared that there might be some resentment toward the family. However, after seeing the genuine love and support from all their friends, family and neighbors, I could see immediately the joy that people had for them.
The trip also made me so thankful to God for bringing friends into my life that have influence over me. This is something that has and will continue to offer tremendous impact on my growth, as I continue my walk with Christ. I believe we need people in our lives that we can relate to and lean on, in order to grow together to be the Christ followers that God calls us to be. I am thankful that this trip helped strengthened existing relationships, as well as begin new ones.
The other realization for me was how critical the role of EA is in planning, executing and sustaining ventures such as Homes of Hope, as well as mission trips like Ship Hope. The benefit that is easiest to identify is the logistical support. Accommodations, meals, cultural advice, transportation etc. all done so well and stress-free. Then, by using the local church network to identify the target family, and the Abundant Life Program, to ensure the Christ-centered growth is sustained, the project can have a successful, chain-breaking impact in eliminating poverty for future generations. The work being done through the EA organization is beyond incredible, and I am thankful to have been able to experience its reach firsthand, and am looking forward to the next opportunity for us to partner on God’s work again soon.
Patrick Staggs
President, Homes of Hope
Member, Bay Shore Community Church, Rehoboth Campus
That was the response of a recent trip participant when I suggested that after lunch we go patronize a participant in the Abundant Life Program who had launched an ice cream business from her home. She and her family were, by the way, exemplary mission trip participants: spiritually mature, prepared, passionate, and relational. So her question provided a great opportunity to highlight the value of relationship building in short-term missions work, and the danger of packing along an American, task oriented “Martha mentality.” (Luke 10:38-42)
That morning we had, in fact, accomplished quite a bit, having:
Spent time fellowshipping with the pastor and leaders of his church
Enjoyed an impromptu time of worship, comprised of musicians from the local church and the visiting group
Shared recent triumphs and challenges of our respective churches
Conducted visits to community members whose homes we, alongside the local church, would be painting the following day, learning about them and praying with them
Shared the gospel and our testimonies of how the love of Christ had compelled us to travel so far to encourage and serve alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ
And…enjoyed lunch with our Dominican brothers and sisters in Christ.
The truth is that, while there is certainly a time and place for hard work that produces tangible results, it is also essential to recognize the value of simply being versus doing, and the significance of one’s mere presence. This is a concept clearly evident in Paul’s words to the church at Thessalonica:
“Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
And it’s also clearly visible in the photo below, taken during our ice cream stop, where American visitors, our host Dominican pastor, our bus driver, and translators enjoyed a lively discussion about…NBA basketball. When I witnessed the debate amongst believers in process, I smiled and whispered to the visiting group leader, “that’s relationship building…that’s ministry.”
Hebrews 10:24 challenges followers of Christ to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” It’s amazing how personal obedience can have a ripple effect of community impact. Case in point: My friend Lance Manlove of Bay Shore Community Church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Lance had never been on a mission trip, until last year when, in obedience, he joined a team from his church in serving with Empowering Action in the Dominican Republic. During that brief trip Lance learned personally what theologian H.A. Ironsides had stated long ago,
“We are naturally so self-centered that we are inclined to believe that the greatest happiness is found in receiving rather than giving. We all enjoy receiving gifts. We delight in receiving praise, love and adulation. We sometimes imagine that if everything that our hearts crave could be poured out upon us, we would be supremely happy. But this is a total mistake. The happiest people in the world are those that give most unselfishly.”
But the impact did not stop there, as a ripple effect of obedience occurred, in regards to the number of people impacted through what the Lord did in Lance’s heart on that short trip, serving alongside the local church to impact their communities for Christ:
Personally – as Lance allowed himself to be dropped down on his first mission trip answering, “Here I am. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). The result is that he not only used his gifts, talents and abilities in those moments in-country, but he was also impacted by the huge need for quality shelter, and left desiring to formulate a solution to help others. God implanted an idea that would eventually lead to a non-profit organization, established to assist impoverished island nations in breaking the chain of poverty through Christ’s love, by converting shipping containers into sustainable homes.
Family – as his 3 small children have, not only supported their father’s new nonprofit, but also become actively involved in raising money for impoverished families in the Dominican Republic, by selling lemonade, with the help of their parents, at their church and to hikers and bikers on a neighborhood trail.
Friends – as, after his mission trip, Lance went back to his friends and, along with Patrick Staggs, together they founded the nonprofit Homes of Hope, which collaborates with EA in providing housing through participating churches of the Abundant Life Program in the Dominican Republic.
Co-workers – as Lance’s employer, Schell Brothers Home Construction, assisted with the prototype build, with many sub contractors donating materials and labor, and sponsored a 5K race this spring, benefitting Homes of Hope.
Church – as Lance’s church supported the first container project, with the entire church, young and old, involved with the building, planning, and sponsorship.
Community – as not only do random individuals stop and offer to help during workdays, but Lance has also been contacted by businesses, civic associations, schools and other churches regarding participation, nationally and abroad. A homeless shelter has even expressed interest in collaborating on a project to develop a container solution to local poverty issues.
As you can see, God can use the obedience of a few to impact many. We can see that same concept at work in scripture with the ripple effect of obedience of Jesus’ earliest disciples, resulting in the existence of the church today:
The initial obedience to the call of “Follow me”…(Matt. 4:18-22)
Continued obedience in the midst of persecution and struggle, stating, “We cannot help but speak about the things we have seen and heard…” (Acts 4:20)
Strategic empowerment and capacity building through adherence to the call to “…entrust these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also…” (2 Tim. 2:2)
Pastor John MacArthur calls for this ripple effect of obedience to continue, commenting on 2 Timothy 2:2,
“From Paul to Timothy to faithful men to others encompasses four generations of godly leaders. That process of spiritual reproduction which began in the early church is to continue until the Lord returns.”
So please pray for and financially support Home of Hope’s initial container home installation with EA, occurring July 31 to August 5th, in the town of Caballona in the Dominican Republic.
And let me encourage you to function in whatever role in the ripple effect of obedience God has given you, and, above all, heed the call of 18th century theologian John Wesley to,
“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”
