Video Transcript: Be the Church and Have Church

This is session eight lecture eight of the practical ministry skills course. Be the  church and have church. This is the second half of chapter four in the book  pastoring the nuts and bolts. Our key verse for this session is one that we have  seen and will probably see again. Matthew 18:20 Jesus is speaking, and he  says, Where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among  them. Where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among  them. Matthew 18:20 and what we talking about today is kind of a another way  of looking at the same thing that we looked at in the last lecture, and that is the  church's part in the the third purpose of the church, which is raising up or inviting everyone to be a part of God's family. We looked at that last time in terms of the  four stroke engine. Today, we're looking at it from a kind of a different  perspective, that individual Christians have a responsibility. Christians together  have a responsibility, and Christian leaders have a responsibility in this area,  that's what I'm going to look at today, is those three things. So first, individual  Christians have a responsibility. What is that responsibility to carry God's  presence in love and power to everyone they meet, to carry God's presence in  love and power to everyone they meet. Now we talked back toward the  beginning about the difference between God's Omnipresence God's manifest  presence. You can't carry God's Omnipresence someplace, because it's already  there. He's already there. David said, if I go up into heaven, if I go down into  Sheol, you're already there. But there is that manifest presence, that sense of  God's presence. Paul described it as an aroma, a fragrance of Christ that we  carry with us, and individual Christians have a responsibility to make sure that  they aren't carrying that and carrying it in such a way that it can get out to  others, if you will, if you remember the story of The woman who had the perfume in the alabaster box and broke it to anoint Jesus. The fragrance couldn't get out  so she broke it. So we need, we have a responsibility, to kind of break our boxes so that the fragrance can get out to everybody whatever we're carrying it in. We  can't keep it boxed up. We can't keep God to ourselves to carry God's presence, and we do that because we already have God's presence in us. If we are  Christians, then by definition, we have the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit is God. Therefore we're carrying God with us. But what we need to do is learn and  teach our people to carry God's presence in love and in power. Those are what  comes out when we break the box. We it comes out as a fragrance. It comes out as love, and it comes out as power. It comes out as love, because if people don't sense the love of God in you and from you, you're not carrying God's presence.  God is love. And if you're carrying god, you're carrying love. And if you are not  carrying that love in a way, well, first off, if you're not carrying love, you're not  carrying God, you're fooling yourself. Okay, if you're just carrying.  Judgmentalism or legalism, but you're not carrying love. You're not carrying  God. And if you're not carrying it in a way that people can sense it, then you're  not effectively carrying it in a way that does anybody any good. Mary could have

carried that box of perfume into Lazarus house and carried it back out, and  nobody would have smelled it, and it wouldn't have done anything for anybody  except maybe give her a little exercise carrying that box around. She had to  break it let let the fragrance out, the aroma out as she anointed Jesus, and that  is what Jesus said. This will be told of her as long as there are people on Earth.  So if people don't sense the love of God in you and from you, then you're not  carrying God's presence. Teach your people different ways to show God's love,  to demonstrate God's love. So we need to carry God's presence and train our  people to carry God's presence in love, but also in power, because love without  the power to do something about it is just frustrating. If you love somebody, say  somebody who is is terminally ill, and you you see them, you love them very  much, and you see them just getting weaker and weaker, and there's nothing  you can do. You don't have the power to do anything about it. That is just  frustrating. If you see a poor person by the side of the road with no food, and  you love them, and your heart goes out to them, and you wish that you could  help them, but you don't have any money and you don't have any food, you  don't have any power to help them, that's just frustrating. But God does not want our love to be frustrated, and so he did something about it. Jesus said, you will  receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my  witnesses, telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea  near the and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The witnessing comes as  part of it. And we already looked at that. But what I want to say right now is the  first part of it, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And  if you look at the end of Luke and the earlier verses of Acts 1, Jesus said, I want  you to go do this. I want you to spread. I want you to be my witnesses. He had  given them the Great Commission, but then he said, but not yet. Wait. You're not You're not equipped yet. Wait until the promise from the Father comes wait till  you get the power, then you'll be equipped. You'll be ready to go out and be my  witnesses. The power is the second stroke of the four stroke engine that we  looked at doing the works of Jesus. So teach your people how to access and  exercise God's power. Because Christians individually, every Christian  anywhere that she or he may be, has a responsibility and opportunity presents  itself to carry God's presence in love and in power To everyone they meet.  Christians individually have a responsibility, and Christians together have a  responsibility, and that is that any two or more Christians should be ready to be  the church and have church anytime anyplace with anybody, any two or more  Christians should be ready to be the church and have church anytime anyplace.  With anybody. Let's break that down. But first I want to show you whoops. There we go. That's a t-shirt that I received at a conference. Church Can Happen  Anywhere, and I love that, that phrase, four little words first, and it seems like  the most obvious meaning of it is that it doesn't have to be in the church  building, doesn't have to be on Sunday morning, doesn't have to be in the 

service. It can be anywhere, and, by extension, any time. But I also love the way it says. It doesn't say you can have church. You can have a service. It says  church can happen. Church is something that can happen. Church can happen  to people, and your people should be trained to be ready to allow church to  happen to the people that need church to happen to them, any place, anytime,  with anybody. So what does that mean? Be the church. Your people need to  know how to be the church. What does it mean be the church? They're already  the church. I've been saying the church isn't the building. The church is the  people. People are the church. So what do I mean when I say, be the church? I  mean, remember who you are and act like it remember who you are and act like it. People say, be yourself. Well, I'm so nervous I don't know what I can do. You  know, how should I act on this first date? How should I act in this job interview?  And somebody says, Be yourself. They mean, remember who you are. Don't try  to fake it. Don't try to make something else up, but don't try to act like anybody  else. Just be who you are, recognize who you are and live that out. That's  exactly what I mean when I say be the church. Christians should remember who they are and act like it. That's what Philip and the others did when they went to  Samaria. It's what the others did as you go on down through Acts 8-9. You can  see that process repeated over and over again. It's not laid out in such detail,  but you can see it again. So what that means be the church is, remember who  you are. You're Christians act like Christians love each other as the church.  We're the family, brothers and sisters. We should be loving each other again.  Jesus said they'll know that you are my disciples. By the way, you love each  other. How are they going to know you love each other? They'll see something  you're doing that lets people say, my goodness, look how much they love each  other. I want to get in on that. Remember who you are and act like it, love each  other and be available to God. Be the church. We haven't talked about this yet.  We've been talking about the family, but another biblical picture of the Church is  the Body of Christ. Jesus is the head. We are the body. The body needs to be  available to the head. If I'm going to wave my hands around like this, my hand  has to be available for the nerve impulses from my head to tell it what to do. We  as the body of Christ, need to be available sensitive to the nerve impulses that  he is sending down to us through His Holy Spirit into our spirit, so that we can  be available for what he wants us to do, be the church. So we need to be ready.  Our people, anytime there's two Christians together, they need to be ready and  equipped and ready and motivated and willing and encouraged to be the church  and as occasion arises to have church. What does that mean? Well, what if your church building burns down, or there's a terrorist threat, or there's a flood, or  there's a gasoline shortage, or whatever it is, nobody can get to your church.  Oh, my goodness. What if they shut all the churches because of some  pandemic? Your people need to know how to have church without you around,  without a certified, ordained pastor, whatever it might be, your people, any two 

Christians, should be able to have church. Our key verse Jesus said, Whenever  two or three so it takes you and somebody else, two or three and implicitly or  more, gathered in my name, I'm with it, and that's enough to have church. So  what does it mean? Have church others that we saw before. When you meet  together, one will sing, another will teach. Another will tell some special  revelation God has given. One will speak in tongues. Another will interpret  what's said. Everything that's done must strengthen all of you. I Corinthians  14:26, all it means is your two or three people get together and they are open to  God. They say, Okay, here we are, God. What do we want to do? We're here.  I'm a Christian. I'm here with this my brother, my sister, my husband, my wife,  my friend from the church and and we're here with these neighbors that their  church is shut down. They can't get to their church. We're going to meet  together, or these, these people I've been talking to, or invited them over,  whatever. So we're going to have church. What does it mean? It means do  some singing, do some Bible reading. Tell what God's been doing in your life.  Give God the glory. That's all it means. And any Christian can do it, and any and  every two Christians or more should be trained and motivated and equipped to  do it, and that is the pastor and church leaders responsibility. We've seen this  before, equip God's people to do God's work until they resemble God's Son.  Your job as a church leader is not to stand up in front and lead all of the  services. It's to equip God's people, to equip the saints, to equip everybody that  comes in to your church. Everybody that comes to listen to you, everybody that  comes under your teaching, equip them to do this stuff. It's a great commission.  Teach them to obey everything that I commanded you. So how do we do that?  You you teach them to you teach them. You give them the the knowledge part of it, you demonstrate, you show people how to do things. And there's four quick  steps to that. You've probably heard this, first, I do it, and you watch. Second, I  do it, and you help. Third, you do it, and I help four, you do it and I watch. And by that fourth step, if when I watch, you do it, you've got it right. You're trained,  teach, demonstrate, provide the resources. If you're telling people, trying to  encourage people to do something, and you don't give them what they need to  do it, that's just frustrating. So provide the resources and make opportunities.  Make opportunities for them to practice. I mentioned that before earlier, make  opportunities for them to do what you're trying to teach them, train them,  apprentice them to do and make opportunities for them to practice small steps in non threatening settings so they can gain confidence and then move on. Don't  just throw them in the deep end of the pool and and expect them to learn how to swim. You know some might, but others will be scared to go near the water  again. They'll run the next time they see you. Make opportunities for them to  practice small steps in non threatening settings, and that what that means is  where, if they make a mistake, nobody's going to get hurt, nobody's going to  come down. So they can gain confidence. Tell them why it's important to do all 

of this stuff. Motivate them. Give them a reason. As I said, watch what they're  doing, give them feedback and support, and then look for opportunities to move  people who are learning these things into positions in the church where they're  recognized among the others in the church that will give them more influence,  more confidence, more ability. Take pressure off of you and soak them in prayer. Always soak them in prayer. Surround all of this in prayer. Never be threatened  by your people increasing in ministry. It blows my mind when I see pastors that  try to hold on to everything and control freaks and don't want to let their people  do anything. Never be threatened by your people increasing in ministry, my  greatest thrill as a pastor, a teacher, a minister, is seeing someone else realize  that God can use them. Have you ever had that experience watching somebody  all of a sudden realize that, Hey, God can use me. I don't have to just sit there.  God can use me. God can do something through me. I can be an answer to  somebody else's prayer. That is so exciting when people realize that my  greatest thrill, seeing somebody realize that God can use them, and then seeing them step out in faith and do things for God, and they will only step out in faith if  you encourage them, they will not step out in Faith if you belittle them and run  them down and don't give them opportunities, and then you're stuck doing  everything by yourself again, see if they start doing things that I have been  doing as a pastor, then that frees me up to do other things. Eventually, the goal  for any kind of a leader is to reach the place where you're only doing the things  that only you can do. If somebody else can do it, I don't need to be doing it,  because there are certain things nobody else can do but me, and that's where I  need to focus my time as a leader. So my goal as a leader is to reach that place  where the only things that I'm doing are the things that only I can do, and other  people are doing everything else. So if people step into ministry and start doing  the things that I've been doing, then praise the Lord, I can let that go. I can take  that off of my list of to do's, and I can focus on other things. Maybe that thing I've been feeling like God's been calling me to do a long time, and I've never found  the time to do it. Well, what if they start doing something I haven't been doing.  What if they start some new thing that we haven't seen in our church before?  Well, praise the Lord. That multiplies the ways that God can work through this  church. I get excited about that, maybe even more than if they're doing the  things that I already was doing, because if they're doing things that nobody else  was doing, that's a brand new ministry, a brand new outreach, a brand new way  to bless people. There was one church I served where a woman was a teacher,  and she came to me, and she said, Pastor, I feel like God maybe is wanting me  to start, wanting us, wanting our church to start a literacy ministry. I've  discovered that there are people here in one of the most educated counties of  the state of Maryland in the United States, right outside Washington DC, right  outside our nation's capital, there are people who live here grown up, people  who don't know how to read. I never knew that. Wouldn't it be great if the church

could start a ministry to teach those people to read? I said, Great, go for it. And  she did, and it didn't go a long time. There weren't all that many people, but at  least one man really learned to read under that ministry, and it turned his life  around. And that's some brand new thing that our church had never been doing.  I don't know of any other churches in the area that had been doing it. So praise  the Lord. Never be threatened by your people increasing in ministry. Either way,  it's a blessing. Individual Christians have a responsibility. Christians together  have a responsibility. Christian leaders have a responsibility, and God is. Is  going to make sure that you are able to carry out that responsibility as you seek  Him. I'll see you next time