Chapter thirteen
Let me tell you about my second assignment….
I was maybe seven or eight years old in the Lord, I purchased a full page in both of our newspapers, the Kelowna Courier and the Capital News, for the purpose of publishing my testimony. I never heard of anyone doing something like this and I was more than a bit anxious about the reaction of christians.
Even back then I was committed to the Lord Jesus and His Holy Spirit while most were devoted to their local churches. I remember one pastor saying that we should be as committed to the local church as the nose is committed to one’s face; you just don’t leave.
Wisdom told me to just do what the Spirit was directing without consulting anyone; expressions of doubt and anxiety could deflate what little courage I had. So I saved the money, wrote my testimony and fearfully presented it to the newspapers. “You want to what!?” they silently said.
I did confide in a friend, and the two of us fervently prayed the night before distribution. Nobody was aware that tomorrow the gospel of Jesus Christ, packaged in my testimony, was suddenly going to crash into thousands of homes.
Ain’t Much, Junior Burger, Micro-me preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to Kelowna! I did more in one night than all the churches combined in a year or more! Bill, that’s what I meant when I said that one person surrendered to the Holy Spirit is more effective for God’s kingdom than many surrendered to religion and religionists.
Did the churches imitate me by using this powerful media to reach Kelowna for Christ? (Hint: Is the pope a protestant?)
One voluminous church invested many thousands to present the gospel message during Easter season every year, publicly inviting Kelowna people to its semi-professional passion play. There were two brothers, both in tuxedos, responsible for the entire production, one I met years later at a job site. In conversation he revealed most of the actors in those plays were paid! I couldn’t believe it! Christians paid for presenting to their city “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”!?
That gobs of money could have been used to publish the gospel every week for years, in one form or another, in the same papers I used to publish my testimony. Most attending the Easter extravaganza were christians, only a relative few were unsaved. But money invested in a newspaper outreach would reach, primarily, the lost. How little it would cost each evangelical church, in any city, if they together purchased a page in their newspaper. (Anyone ever hear of the Great Commission?)
I remember Tozer writing, “Evangelicalism is a poor investment.” Amen and amen!
Well the sky didn’t fall on my head. The pastor of the church I frequented posted it on the bulletin board. I got reports of christians, young and old, being encouraged. And who knows the result of all those gospel-seeds planted in the hearts of the unsaved? (“It shall not return to Me void.”)
Every believer “born of the Spirit” has a powerful, soul-winning weapon in their possession…. his/her testimony. Their story is both unique and interesting, especially to those desperate for Christ’s salvation. Why not do what I did? Why not do what they will wish they would have done when they step up to the “judgement seat of Christ”? Almost every christian worldwide has an opportunity to package the gospel of Jesus Christ in their testimony, and present it to their city. But will they?
Thousands throughout the world will, in time, be reading these words in “An Open Letter to Bill Johnson of Bethel Church”, but very few, if any, will have their testimony published in their local papers. Why, oh why, oh why? I think I know….
They are scared. No, not so much a fear of the non-christians who would read their testimony (though there is that reality), but their own christian bunch with whom they bunch! Yes, christians! Yes, Pastor Whoever who taught them to be a team player! Yes, the mighty the way it is that just might be threatened by such a display of independence.
Pastor Whoever has restructured the young convert who happened into his church from a Jesus-and-me to a Jesus-and-us, from a One-to-one to a team player.
This new convert soon learns to ‘keep his place’. In time he will be stamped with an unspoken, but very real, status of lightweight. He is taught, non-verbally, that it is not his ‘place’ to preach. Leave that to the heavyweights.
Yes, most Jesus-and-us christians are afraid to preach.
They are not only afraid of Pastor Whoever, they are afraid of each other. They have been conditioned to ‘keep their place’. Much of what we learn we learn non-verbally. Pew-people have been taught, non-verbally, it is not their ‘place’ to preach. Preaching is reserved for pulpit-people. That message has been consistently relayed in code from pulpit to pew.
No, I have never heard it said that pew-people are not called by Jesus Christ to preach, but I have also never heard it un-said. Bonhoeffer: “Not to speak is to speak.”
Pastor Whoever could release the congregation from this unreasonable and un-Scriptural mentality. But he won’t. He won’t because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to because sharing his special status as the lone preacher makes that status less special.
In every society people learn to find their ‘station’. Harmony depends on it. Unspoken rules are unspoken because they are ludicrous. Nonetheless all must learn what is allowed and what is forbidden. The approval and acceptance we all secretly crave depends on it.
Bill, this bondage is as real as the prisoner’s shackles. The proof is in the fact that christians don’t preach (generally speaking). When they surrendered themselves to the bunch they weakened themselves exceedingly. Their strength – which was in 1) their relationship with Jesus and 2) their dependence on the Holy Spirit alone – has shrunk severely.
We are all called to preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” both privately – to friends and family, etc. – and publicly – to groups of people, small and large. We need not wait for Pastor Whoever’s invitation to borrow his pulpit (that will never happen); be assured, Jesus will open a door of opportunity to those who are devoted to Him and prepared. (Jesus: “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”)
Try to find one person of significance in the New Testament that did not preach. The baptist preached. The twelve preached, the seventy preached, Mark and Luke and Stephen and Phillip preached. Barnabas and Silas preached. Timothy and Titus preached. The healed blind-from-birth preached. Etcetera, etcetera.
They preached and we should preach, privately and publicly. How can we claim the bible is our standard and not preach?
Jesus-and-us christians can set themselves free from shackles that bind by simply declaring themselves, from this moment onward, under the direct rule of the Holy Spirit. And they must fiercely (repeat, fiercely!) defend that freedom. They lost it once; they could lose it again. There’s lotsa zealous controllers out there. Jesus: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.”