July 2010 eLetter

In this issue:

LEADERSHIP CONCERNS – Don Atkin

POWER LUST – Steve Crosby
A HIGHER CALLING – Greg Austin
SHAMELESS DIVISIONS – Jay Ferris

FINAL NOTICE for Early Bird Registration!

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 LEADERSHIP CONCERNS
Don Atkin
www.DonAtkin.com

It is fair to admit up front that I cannot look into hearts unless God gives me discernment. I must
also admit that it takes constant effort to avoid judging by what the eye can see and the ear can
hear.

At the same time, the only true witness an unbeliever has available to him is what his eye can see
and his ear can hear. Therefore, we should all be called up to a standard that exemplifies Christ
Jesus, in whom we live and move and have our being.1

Christ in us is the hope of glory,2 and is to be glorified by what others see in and hear from us.
Thus, we are without excuse. Our walk is to line up with our talk.

PLATFORM PERFORMERS AND CELEBRITIES

I remember when I was so eager to serve God and so eager for others to see me doing it. I wasn’t
good enough or unique enough to make “the big time,” so I gradually was weaned from myself
and humbled under His mighty hand.

So many are catapulted into fame while still very young, impressionable, and vulnerable. It takes
time and experiences to learn the values of humility and meekness, and the wisdom of
immediately casting our crowns and trophies at the feet of Jesus. The adulation of crowds (who
don’t know any better) can truly do us a disservice.

It’s not the platform or stage. It is the heart condition that determines the quality (and often the
source) of our ministries. Both performers and ministers can share the same spotlight, and only
the more discerning can tell the difference. Scripture makes it clear that those who are in the
flesh cannot please God.3

Moving from an auditorium to a living room does not change the condition of hearts. Platforms
were first introduced into practice to facilitate effectual ministry of God’s word to larger
gatherings. Just as we are to consider one another and ourselves according to God’s intended
function, so we should consider facilities simply for their functional use.

Celebrity Christianity, mega-facilities, television, cyberspace, etc., have no biblical precedent. Yet,
God appoints some to build and bless His people in larger spheres. Pray that we all might
maintain sensibility and reality in our views and presentations. The greater the responsibility,
the more we need to proactively practice aggressive humility. We cannot make ourselves more
than stewards, or less than sons.
1
Acts 17:28
2
Colossians 1:27
3
Romans 8:8

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JESUS’ EXAMPLE

Jesus’ example is worthy of note. He did not seek crowds, though crowds sought Him. He never
was moved from only doing what He saw the Father doing. Miracles followed Him. But, He
never followed miracles.

Isaiah described Him as having no form of comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty
that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men.4 Paul wrote about Him: He
made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of
men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even the death of the cross.5

PAUL FOLLOWED

Paul exemplified the crucified life of Christ, fully realizing that he had nothing of true spiritual
value to give except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in
much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the
wisdom of men but in the power of God.”6

Paul’s words caution us today: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in
lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for
his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus.”7

Paul grasped Jesus’ example and proved man’s capacity to live out that example to others by the
power of the Holy Spirit.

Premier qualities of seasoned leaders include:

• The fear of God

• Humility
• Meekness
• Wisdom
• Love
• Patience
• Kindness
• Grace

We are to be carriers of God’s divine presence,. We are merely oracles—messengers—sent from

above. We must decrease to the point of transparency so that we may say with Jesus, He who has
seen Me has seen the Father.8

4
Isaiah 53:2b-3a
5
Philippians 2:7-8
6
1 Corinthians 2:2-5
7
Philippians 2:3-5
8
John 14:9

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 POWER LUST
This article is an excerpt from: Healing: Hope or Hype? by Stephen Crosby
Copyright 2007 Eloquent Books. All rights reserved.

Steve Crosby
www.SteveCrosby.org

The will to power is in all humanity. It’s as old as the garden. It doesn’t get any more primal in
power than “ye shall be as gods.”[i] That’s the power statement of all power statements. Lord
Acton’s axiom about power tending to corrupt and absolute power corrupting absolutely, is not
far off the mark. Our civil forefathers understood the need to restrain power. The appropriated
and experiential Cross of Christ is supposed to address that issue for believers. Death precedes
life. Strength and weakness, and suffering and glory co-exist side by side.

A prevailing ethos of power is not helpful, but rather detrimental to a faith community that is
trying to touch God in faith for healing. A culture of power is a culture of spiritual imperialism
where life is framed in terms of victors and losers, be it in theological debate, interpersonal
relationship, or engaging the issue of health and healing. We want disease and sickness to be on
the loser side of the scale. However, a Christian’s victory is not based on brute force, even in
dominion over disease. It’s based on death and resurrection. We must never lose sight of this.

Problems occur when we move from a Calvary base of ministry to a power base. This jeopardy is
nowhere more serious than in the matter of the gifts of healings. There’s a common three-fold
categorization of the charismatic gifts. Allegedly, the three categories are: power, utterance, and
revelation. Who says so? These are man-made prejudgments and categorizations. Who says
healing is a power gift? Manifested power is the fruit of abundant faith and love. We want the
gifts of healings to operate in our midst without the cost associated with maintaining personal
relationships and identifying with the sufferer. We want to maintain our cultural value systems
and still have power “on-tap” to make things happen, when we chant the name of Jesus. The
kingdom doesn’t work that way.

To effectively minister the gifts of healings you have to let yourself be touched by suffering. If you
cannot weep privately, then you’ll have no authority publicly. Christ was a high priest touched by
the feelings of our infirmities. Our culture keeps us busy and in a state of spiritual apathy and
indifference, yet we expect God’s power to flow on demand in our corporate gatherings. It will
never happen in an expansive way in that kind of scenario. If we expect healings to flow, it means
we must get engaged in the lives of others. Charles Péguy wryfully said this about Christians:
Their hands are clean, but they have no hands.[ii] He was referring to the tendency in Christians
to admire personal holiness and never engage another human being in a meaningful way.

This is painfully true in our attitudes, theology and methodologies of healing. We must invest our
resources of time, money, energy, and emotions in others. Because of the prosperity of our
culture, we think we can throw money at problems and make them go away. We pay

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professionals: doctors, lawyers, and preachers, to deal with our problems and make them go
away. We’re unwilling to divest ourselves of our right to our most precious resource: time. If
healing is going to expansively flow in a believing community (and outside it) we will have to
forgo our right to our time, energy, and emotions. Calvary claims them all.

I’m not talking about being burned up and used up in church activities. Part of being a good
steward, as I have said, is saying no to things. I am talking about making time to touch others in
need, whatever that might look like in local circumstances. I’m talking about being functionally
led by the Spirit and adapting and changing whatever it takes in our lifestyle to make it happen.

When we don’t see healings like we should, we can be disappointed, depressed, or downcast.
Often this is because power hasn’t been exercised for all to see and admire, not because of any
deep point of identification with the needs of the physically oppressed. We’re more concerned
about how our prayer is going to make us look than if the sick are healed. We want to accrue
power, and get a sense of value from power.

While the gifts of healings are not necessarily defined in terms of power, power is the result of
their release. Healings are a war against death and disease and represent the ultimate power
struggle. This is heady air to breathe. Many mighty ones have fallen victim to the intoxicating
effects of having authority over disease. Even though power so easily corrupts, the Church must
have an answer for the overt power grab that is occurring in our day by those secular forces that
would have us dependent on them for our very lives. The Church needs to have an answer, not
fighting fire with fire, matching strength for strength, but an answer according to Christ in
resurrection and in the power of Calvary.

Supernatural works are the result of faith, and faith works by love. To emphasize and teach
spiritual techniques to “release the supernatural” is a carnal shortcut which attempts to bypass
the requirement of love. Where love abounds, supernatural power follows. If we are missing
supernatural manifestations in our midst, it is a love failure, not a power shortage. The various
“schools of the supernatural” that abound in this day produce skilled technicians rather than
rabid lovers, and that is why Jesus’ words apply to all the wonder workers: “Depart from me, I
never knew you.”

[i] Genesis 3:5.

[ii] Cited in Paul Tournier, The Whole Person in a Broken World. New York: Harper & Row, 1964,
160.

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 A HIGHER CALLING
Greg Austin
www.GregAustin.org

Acts 6 contains the intriguing story of the selection of “seven men, of good reputation, full of the
Holy Spirit and wisdom”9 to care for the Hellenistic widows in the daily distribution.

Stephen appears for the first time in scripture and is described as a man “full of faith and the
Holy Spirit.”10

Abruptly, we discover that even as Stephen is signing up as a waiter, men are preparing to stone
him to death.

The Rolling Stones made famous the line “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Few who heard
those famous words caught the next line in the song: And if you try sometime you find you get what
you need.”11

I would argue that the spirit of the world has so infected, so contaminated what we have known as
“church” that the standards used by Christendom for determining even such spiritually exclusive
elements as “anointing” are secularly and not spiritually derived.

In a religious culture that gauges success in Christ in terms of spiritual victories, increasingly large
numbers of followers – the crowds played to, name familiarity, achieved prosperity, good health,
good kids, good wives and good graces, God judges us according to our faithfulness.

And while victory and prosperity are not criteria for success in the eyes of a watching, heavenly
Father, conversely, neither are the myriad difficulties, challenges and troubles that come uninvited
into our lives an accurate measure of our spirituality. Instead, problems and challenges are merely
opportunities for faithfulness to shine.

In Stephen’s brief resume in Acts 6, we discover that he was a gifted administrator, a capable
teacher and a talented communicator. He bore the reputation of faith, wisdom and grace. The Holy
Spirit of God infused and enabled his ministry.

As we consider these gifts and abilities, we expect to find in Stephen a rising star in the galaxy of
the disciples: Surely, he will rally men to the cause of Christ and lead them into all the world to
preach the gospel of the Kingdom.

But in stark contrast, God has a position prepared for Stephen far from the lights of the stadium or
the elevated platform of international notoriety: God calls Stephen to be a servant; a food
distribution manager at the local Senior Center for Displaced Widows.

9
Acts 6:3
10
v5
11
You Can’t Always Get What You Want © Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, 1969 Decca Records

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In comparison with the conspicuous gifts Stephen possesses, the calling to wait tables seems
somehow unglamorous and unspectacular; not what we expect from our talented brother.

He’ll never grace the cover of Charisma Magazine or be asked to appear on anybody’s Christian
Television Network. What conceivable interest could a table waiter be to the Body of Christ? We
want a “winner” to talk to us; we want flash and shine and a story that will blow our minds. Too
often, what we call “anointing” is little more than showmanship. To the less than discerning heart,
what we call “charisma” may actually be theatrical performance; a stage presence carefully
developed and presented.

But the Greek rendering of Stephen’s ministry contains a familiar word, diakoneo (the verb form
of diakonos), which we recognize as “deacon:” One who, by virtue of his assigned office cares for
the poor. A waiter, one who serves food and drink.” Matthew, Mark and John each contains, in the
Greek texts, the same word, used by Jesus in reference to those who would follow Him, but also
used as an intimation of Jesus’ own position in the Divine order: He came as a Servant to you and
to me; “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for
many."12

To be intentionally redundant: The perpetual pollution of the church by the toxin of worldly
standards has sickened the church until we crave that which is at best, superficial and at worst
devilish. We hunger and a thirst for the charismatic-appearing, the “beautiful” and the “special”
among us. With Israel of old, we desire a king as other nations.13

To compound our error, this unholy and unhealthy elevation of celebrity is passed on to ensuing
generations until our Bible Colleges and Theological Seminaries become manufacturing plants for
more of the same cookie-cutter replications of today’s “hero” ministers.

The “waiter” is ignored, relegated to the soup kitchen or to the anonymity of an obscure mission
field: We want “star power!” And too many young, Spirit-filled and energetic men and women find
their models among the “beautiful” and not the truly useful.

Stephen’s acceptance of such lowly estate guarantees he will receive no “Dove Award” or “Medal of
Honor” by the church. Yet God considered him worthy of higher honor: He will be lifted by a loving
God into the balcony of the Martyrs.

As followers of Jesus, we are not afforded the luxury of choosing what we will do for heaven. We are
not offered choices from a full color catalogue of potential ministries. We are called to hear and to
obey when the Father bids us “come.”

In immediate reaction to Stephen’s unabashed preaching of the Cross, religious rulers are “cut to
the heart” and they “[gnash] at him with their teeth. But he being full of the Holy Spirit gazed into
heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”14

In moments he will be seized upon, led out of the city and stoned. He will call on God and say,

12
Matthew 20:28
13
1 Samuel 8: 191,20
14
Acts 7:54, 55

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“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He must have been nearby, on the Hill, on that Day when his Savior
suffered similar abuse, for Stephen will “kneel down and cry out with a loud voice, Lord, do not
charge them with this sin.”15

Stephen’s ministry is brief. He will not sit as an old man and pen his memoirs of a long and
multifaceted ministry. His service to God is measured in hours, not in decades. Yet Stephen was no
catastrophe; instead, he was faithful.

God is not interested in our success or failure, neither is He especially concerned whether we are
treated fairly or unfairly in this life.

Were we to complain about our difficulties, He might testify of His Son’s experience, being
“despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief . . .”16 Men lied to the
manifest Truth, they falsely accused and murdered the only One Who did no wrong.

In a court of justice God’s Son’s testimony far surpasses our little complaints at life’s unfairness.

Neither the accolades of this world or the trophies of the success of men mean anything to God.
But how we bless His heart with the wounds we bear from the persecutions we endure.

We struggle and clamor to get other people to see how wonderful we are, how talented, how
anointed, how unique: How much better to reveal the limp, to bare the scar, to manifest a life of
being faithful, in small things and large.

With all the uproar in charismatic circles regarding “open heavens,” perhaps Stephen knew the
true secret: In his steadfast faithfulness to the heavenly vision, he “saw heaven opened” and Jesus,
“standing” there, His own scars evident.

Such a vision would stop our need for worldly, religious success, for what others may think about
the product of our lives and produce in us a thankfulness for the scars of faithfulness – no matter
what life may bring us.

15
Acts 7:57-60
16
Isaiah 53:3

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 SHAMELESS DIVISIONS
Jay Ferris
Jferris@mac.com

I have a continuing problem with our failure to obey the cardinal truth of the Scripture, "Hear O
Israel, the Lord your God is one God." With all of the certainty of my salvation, I believe that
Ephesians 4:4-6 is an elaboration of this truth, and that God has provided the Church with
leadership, "... apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers..." to work it out in this present
age.

If the present organization, or lack thereof, even division of the Body of Christ is acceptable to
God and man, then there is really no compelling reason for the leadership of the various divisions
to come together. Certainly, the present priorities of leadership make it very difficult for them to
do so.

If, on the other hand, the present division of the church is unacceptable to God and man, and
especially God, and unity among the leaders is foundational to the healing of the broken Body of
Christ, then unity among the leaders must be their highest priority.

A broken and divided Body does not witness the resurrection truth about God. And it is past time
that we repent of our attempts to present the world with a lie, in the Name of the Lord.

It is apparent that there is real concern among local leaders, about the further division of the
Body of Christ, and especially as their own congregations are effected.

At the very least, we would like to see an end to the fractious practice of coming into an area and
setting up a new "church," "work," call it what you will, and doing so without contacting existing
leadership in the area. As for me, I am convinced that anyone who thinks that his translocal
associations and credentials are license to establish a new division in a local body, "thinks more
highly of himself than he ought."

For too long the approach to ministry has been to seek a position out of which to serve. At some
point or other, institutional training has supplied the mark of authenticity where the attainment
of position is concerned. Not only is this not Bible, it is contrary to the Bible, and Gentile in
attitude, approach and style. New Testament ministry is service out of which comes position, not
position, out of which comes service.

The irreducible mark of authenticity, therefore is not institutional credentials, it is maturity and
service. While institutional credentials do not disqualify, neither do they establish. In too many
instances they have no bearing on spiritual life or death. This must be understood if meetings of
Christian leaders are to be properly inclusive and exclusive.

I would like to take this concern a few steps further, both in its logic and its implication. I have

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expressed the need for corporate cover for pastoral ministry at the household level. I have tried
to articulate the importance of unity among the leaders as foundational if this cover is going to be
provided without the further and terminal division of the Body of Christ.

Once this takes place, it should be no problem to make perfectly clear the basis on which Godly
eldership affirms ministry at the household level. Not to see this, is to be a party to the division of
the Body of Christ from street to street as house groups, which are extensions of the present, and
even further divisions, are unable to get along at the neighborhood level. "Love The Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind'; and `Love your neighbor as
yourself."

The leaders are concerned that those with ulterior motives will use this household dimension as
an opportunity to start new "churches." They are also concerned about the appearance of new,
and independent ministries in their area, but not enough to repent of walking independently
themselves. In any given place, otherwise godly men preside over the broken Body of Christ,
calling the parts the whole, and failing to preach the whole counsel of God. They are upset by
new division, but indifferent to the old. Our world is over-run with disconnected "experts" in the
Name of The Lord.

All of this is to say, that unless leaders see the problem, and repent of perpetuating it, get the
beam out of our own eye, so to speak, we will continue to be part of the problem, rather than part
of the solution, and will certainly be in no position to deal with those who would further divide
the Body of Christ.

For lack of vision, the major concerns of leadership seem to be; earthly employment, position,
numbers, income and reputation. Presupposing professional clergy, leaders get paid to meet
together, may or may not show up at such meetings of local leaders as presently exist, and ignore
the financial and time constraints of others who must work for the support of their families and
to have to share with those in need.

The net result is that professionalism is self-perpetuating, and otherwise mature and gifted
ministries are precluded from meaningful participation in the leadership of the Church. In many
cases, very junior ministry, carrying little if any real weight is supported at the expense of the
church, while very senior ministry, carrying great weight, fails to be given even single honor,
where the Church is concerned.

From top to bottom, the Church appears to be blind-sided where Biblically appropriate objects of
submission and giving are concerned. The leadership, as it is presently constituted, has little if
any inclination to address these issues, among themselves, let alone from the pulpits, which they
so jealously guard. Like sheep without shepherds, the people are left in relational and structural
darkness and the leadership appears to love it this way.

If the leaders do not know the truth or teach the truth, or care or worse, knowing the truth, do
everything possible to keep the people from discovering it, then the Church is in a very bad state.
In a recent service, a brother from Kenya went so far as to say that "The Word of God is so clear,
you have to have help to misunderstand it."

God knows, we have had a lot of help.

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