God's Rescue Vision for Fairforest
Where there is no vision, the people perish. -
Proverbs 29:18
1. Real Life Team
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. -John 10:10
The objective of the Real Life Team is to rescue Christians from living defeated lives.
What does that mean? When Jesus gave us salvation, He expected that as His followers we would become more and more like Him every day. For many if not most Christians, this has not happened.
We grow when are stretched out of our comfort zones. When we grow, we’ll be able to live life in a way that can only come through total devotion to Jesus Christ. According to Scripture, being a Christian disciple involves personal growth characterized by the following:
1. Give Jesus first priority. (Mark 8:34-38): The disciple of Christ needs to be set apart from the world. Our focus should be on our Lord and pleasing Him in every area of our lives. We must put off self-centeredness and put on Christ-centeredness.
2. Following Jesus' teachings (John 8:31-32): We must be obedient children and doers of the Word. Obedience is the supreme test of faith in God, and Jesus is the perfect example of obedience as He lived a life on earth of complete obedience to the Father even to the point of death.
3. Fruitfulness (John 15:5-8): Our job is not producing fruit. Our job is to abide in Christ, and if we do, the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit, and this fruit is the result of our obedience. As we become more obedient to the Lord and learn to walk in His ways, our lives will change. The biggest change will take place in our hearts, and the overflow of this will be new conduct (thoughts, words and actions) representative of that change. The change we seek is done from the inside out, through the power of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t something we can conjure up on our own.
4. Love for each other (John 13:34-35): We are told that love of other believers is the evidence of our being a member of God's family. Love is defined and elaborated on in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. These verses show us that love is not an emotion; it is action. We must be doing something and involved in the process. Furthermore, we are told to think more highly of others than of ourselves and to look out for their interests in Philippians 2:3-4. The next verse in Philippians (verse 5) really sums up what we are to do when it comes to everything in life: "our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." What aperfect example He is to us for everything we are to do in our Christian walk.
These are just a few examples but the main idea is that we become more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Power Life Team
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and to the ends of the earth. -Acts 1:8
The objective of the Power Life Team is to rescue the lost from eternal death.
Matt. 28:19-20 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
For the believer, these scriptures are our marching orders. The first century Jewish Christian would have understood Jesus’ words to have constituted a command rather than a suggestion; we are to bear witness to the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done to bring us into relationship with him.
Sharing our faith is scary for many people. We tend to think of witnessing as something we deliberately set out to do rather than something we live. At times it will be something we set out to do, but it is really just a way of life. As we grow in the Real Life we become more and more obedient to the Lord Jesus. Every day in the way we live, we witness, to the truth of who he says he is and to what he teaches and commands us to do. We do this to the degree in which we are willingly conformed into the image and likeness of God, and as we attempt to do it (or fail to make the attempt) the world is watching, waiting to see if our claims about Jesus mean enough to us that we would strive to live them.
This can be a frightening prospect since we are sinners, and we frequently fail in our faithfulness to Christ. This means that our witness is often less than it should be. What is worse, though, is that it is possible for us to call ourselves Christians, even to witness to that Christianity, and yet live in ways that are no different from those who are not Christian. In other words, it is easy for us not to take our Christian faith seriously; in so doing, we bear false witness to Christ, in that we say by our inconsistency that he is not important, that he cannot change lives, or that believing in him really makes no relevant difference in anyone’s life. We may not believe that, but the way we live and act may very well tell the world exactly that.There is an old saying that says,” What you are speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.” Many people that we love and care about don’t know what we know and how will they unless we tell them. Who are you going to tell this week?
3. Body Life Team
Neither do men poour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. -Matthew 9:17
The objective of the Body Life Team is to lead and effort to rescue churches that are plateaued, declining, or dying.
Statistics tell us that somewhere between 80 to 85% of all churches are either plateaued, declining, or dying. Fairforest Baptist Church is a member of the Spartanburg County Baptist Network, which has 92 churches. If our statistics are right that means that approximately 73 churches fall into this category. We are also affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention that has 2,103 which means that approximately 1,682 churches in the state of South Carolina fit into this category.
As I was praying for God to share his vision for Fairforest, He indicated that He was in the process of rescuing Fairforest Baptist Church and we were to go and do likewise.
We are in the process of developing a course entitled New Wineskins. This course will be part of the way God will use us to reach the objective of The Body Life Team.
Please continue praying about how you will fit in to each of these areas.
4. Ministers Life Team
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. -1 Peter 5:10
The objective of the Ministers Life Team is to rescue pastors and staff who for one reason or another are no longer in the ministry.
Published July 8, 2010
A growing number of pastors are being forced to leave their churches over what a South Carolina Baptist Convention official calls “control issues.” In fact, said Monty Hale, the question of who is going to run the church has consistently ranked as the number one reason cited for forced terminations of pastors of Baptist churches in South Carolina since 2005, according to surveys.
In 2009, with all 43 SCBC local associations reporting, 14 pastors were reportedly dismissed over control issues. The next three highest reported categories of forced termination were related to the first: pastor’s leadership style too weak (8), pastor’s leadership style too strong (7), and church’s resistance to change (7). Disagreement over doctrine (2) was low on the list of reasons for forced terminations, and sexual misconduct resulted in four terminations, although Hale said he sees a disturbing “inching up” in sexual immorality-related terminations, a phenomenon he attributes to the rise of pornography. Hale said up to 25 percent of all forced terminations go unreported.
In 2009, there were 57 reported pastor terminations in the SCBC.
The numbers in South Carolina reflect a trend across the country, he said, and “the number one reason for forced terminations is always about who’s in charge.” As an example, he cited so-called “family chapels,” where “patriarchs and matriarchs” have veto power over all decisions. The pastor is allowed the power of “management by exception,” meaning, Hale said, “we will let you do what you want to do until we don’t like it.” To make matters worse, he added, the pastor often “doesn’t know where the line is” until after he has crossed it.
“It happens on every scale,” he said. “Worship wars and debates over deacons versus elders — these aren’t the problem. They’re symptoms. The problem is control in the church. It’s a trend that is sad.”
Issues of church control haven’t always been the main reason for forced terminations, Hale said. “Twenty-five years ago [terminations were] more for moral or theological issues,” he said.
Why the change? Hale thinks it’s directly related to the rise to power of baby boomers, a generation that came of age “telling ourselves it was all about us, and that [attitude] washed over into our thinking and into our Christianity.”
Hale, himself an admitted boomer, said the “golden age” of North American church growth began soon after World War II — with the rise of the builder generation — and continued uninterrupted until about 1964.
With graying boomers now at the helm, Hale said, churches have to guard against being too invested in “programmatic” thinking — nurturing the status quo and focusing inward. “The ones in control want to hang on to their culture,” he said. “That’s what’s affecting the church right now.”
Nevertheless, Hale is optimistic. He sees the “rising of a new church culture that has to do with our children and grandchildren,” a generation that does not value “buildings and programs.”
“They want to be hands-on,” he said.
While he believes conflicts arising from issues of church control will continue “until boomers fade from the scene,” Hale hopes the emergence of a generation of believers more interested in reaching the world and less in maintaining programs will lead to a day when “firing people for no good reason will not happen.”
5. Community Life Team
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap the harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people. -Galatians 6:9-10
The objective of the Community Life Team is to lead an effort to rescue the Fairforest community.
