by Mark Smith

The day’s final speaker for the day and for the conference was Lance Witt of Replenish Ministries, who has been a pastor for more than 20 years.  Witt says that when he stepped down from a leadership role at Saddleback Church in 2006, he did so with a “conflicted soul.”  “I was tired, weary, emotionally empty and a little disillusioned,” he said.  And then he began to learn that many pastors have the same kinds of feelings.  He notes that 1,500 pastors leave the ministry permanently each month in America.  Further, more than 50 percent of pastors are so discouraged they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.  In addition, 71 percent of pastors state they are burned out, and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even a daily basis.
Witt urged pastors to step back from the path they are on in order to examine their lives and ministries.  He defined what he sees as the greatest leadership challenges in ministry.  They are:
1.    Ambition.  Utilizing James 3:16, he said pastors need to constantly ask of themselves: “Am I really driven by God’s purposes, or is it about me?”  “All of us,” he warned, “have an ability to self deceive.”
2.    Acceleration.  “Is there some insecurity in me,” he asked, “that fuels my need for notoriety?”  Admitting his own need for rapid success in ministry, Witt said, “My family often paid the price for the ‘approval junkie’ that I was.”  He said to pastors, “If you don’t slow down in ministry and get away with God, you are going to end up disillusioned, cynical or burned out.”
3.    Validation.
4.    Depersonalization.  “When the shepherd is not healthy,” he stated, “the sheep will begin to pay the price.”  Witt asked, “Do the people who know you best respect you the most?”
Witt concluded by referencing Jeremiah 6:16 to show the importance of finding “rest for your souls.”  “Get away with God and find that rest for your soul,” he said.

by Mark Smith

Chris Hodges, senior pastor of Church of the Highlands, and Billy Hornsby’s son in law, was our third speaker of the day, addressing “internal motivations” for making ministry work.  Church of the Highlands began on February 4, 2001, with 350 people attending services at a local school.  Hodges and his team began reaching out to the non-churched community with the message of Jesus Christ.  In the first year, the church grew to 600 in weekly attendance, with 371 people committing their lives to Christ.  The church has now planted six other churches and gives nearly a quarter of its income to missions.  It has become a model for many local churches.
Hodges noted three internal motivations for making ministry work:
1.    Love life.  Referring to II Corinthians 6:10, he said it was a verse “to change your attitude.”  Warning that “too many pastors love the crowd, but don’t love the people,” Hodges urged pastors to find joy in life so that they can be joyful in ministry.
2.    Love people.
3.    Love God.  Hodges asked pastors attending the conference, “Is there passion for God in your ministry?”  He advised, “You may serve God, you may be committed to God, but do you really love Him?”  He utilized the well-known musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” when Tevye, who has been working with a matchmaker to find husbands for his daughters, begins to wonder if his own wife—who married him through a matchmaker—really loves him.  He then sings to his wife, Golde, “Do you love me?”  And Golde replies with a list of things she has done for Tevye through the years to prove her love.  “Yes, but do you really love me?” he asks again, until finally Golde realizes that it is not a list that Tevye seeks, rather the confirmation that his wife truly loves him.  Hodges concluded by stating, “God is singing out to you today: ‘Do you really love me?’”

by Mark Smith

Billy Hornsby, who heads the Association for Related Churches (ARC), spoke next on how pastors can refocus their attention on regaining their zeal for ministry, and subsequently gain a zeal for church planting.  Hornsby started ARC in of 2000 after 30 years of missions work, planting churches and observing successful and unsuccessful ministries.  The ministry was launched after he learned that more than 80 percent of new churches fail within the first five years and that many of the new church planters that began with excitement and vision abandoned ministry along with their churches.  The result of losing one’s zeal in the pastorate, Hornsby said, is three-fold.  When our zeal is lost we:
1.    Become ineffective in fulfilling our mission.  (The result is a loss of interest, desire and passion for ministry.)
2.    Feel rejected.
3.    Feel insignificant.
In order to regain a zeal for ministry, Hornsby said, pastors need to do the following:
1.    Re-engage your heart to return to the basic call of God to reach people.  (“Reach out to people on purpose, daily,” he said.  “Re-launch your ‘boat’ back in the deep waters to catch ‘fish.’”)
2.    Plant churches.  (“Church planting takes the limits off your church,” Hornsby stated.)
The ARC (www.relatedchurches.com) is a powerful resource for local pastors wanting to get new idea, as well as an information site for new pastors wanting to get the best strategies for planting their churches.

by Mark Smith

Greg Surratt, senior pastor of Seacoast Church in Mount Pleasant, S.C., kicked off the day’s program.  Seacoast was one of the pioneering churches in the recent phenomena of multi-site congregations.  Surratt said that when the city zoning commission ruled a few years ago that the church would not be permitted to build on a site on which they had envisioned a new church, it seemed like the darkest day in the church’s history.  But it turned into an amazing victory as the church grew on multiple sites.  “When we get desperate,” Surratt said, “we’ve got to innovate.”  “Many victories would not have been possible in the following years without losing that battle,” he added.
After its launch in February 1988 with 65 people joining together in an apartment clubhouse, Seacoast today has eight campuses in South Carolina, two in North Carolina and one in Savannah, Georgia.
Referring to I Corinthians 15:58 (“… knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord”), Surratt focused on three keys to overcoming discouragement that comes from seeming defeats in church planting and in the pastorate.
1.    Base your preaching on the simplicity of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2.    Base your confidence on the fact that God has chosen you.
3.    Base your hope on the fact that you are on the winning team.

By: Mark Smith

Tuesday morning’s second speaker was Ed Stetzer, author, church planter and director of Lifeway Research and Lifeway’s missiologist in residence, who stated at the onset: “I want to call us to live Gospel-centered, repentance-filled lives.”  Stetzer focused on what he said was an unlikely topic for a conference for pastors and church staffs: hidden sin.  Utilizing Galatians 5:19, Stetzer said, “Unconfessed sin affects the entire mission of God.”
“In the eyes of a holy God,” Stetzer continued, “there is no difference in being a warlock and lusting after a larger church… sin destroys us.”  He urged pastors and church workers to examine their hearts—as a daily pursuit—to ensure that hidden sin is not touching their ministry.
Stetzer noted that Christians tend to believe they are doing alright when they are avoiding major sins similar to those that have ruined some high-profile pastors.  Then he noted that even the seemingly small sins of the heart can have dreadful results.  “If Satan cannot compromise our beliefs,” he said, “he is happy with compromising our character.”
Stetzer then examined four truths about secret sins.
1.    Secret sins are only that way for a short time.  “God has a desire to bring sin out and will do so publicly if you won’t address it,” he said.  Stetzer advised that we should take all sin seriously.  “Sin is not a pet that we can train,” he warned, “it is a beast to slay.”  He then noted the joy in constantly ensuring that we are allowing Christ to control our sinful hearts.  “The repentance-filled life becomes a joy-filled life,” he stated.
2.    Private sin can devastate the community of faith into public defeat.  “Pastor, your sin saps your church’s spiritual power,” Stetzer cautioned.  “One man’s sin can have devastating results for all God’s people…sin gives rise to a mutual weakness.”  Stetzer said the only way to defeat sin in our lives is to become broken before God and to confess the sin in our lives.  “Get broken,” he said, “or God will break you.”
3.    The church’s toleration of sin distracts the church from the mission God calls it to.  Referring to I Corinthians 5, Stetzer noted that the Corinthian church served as an example of a church that tolerated sin in its midst.  He encouraged pastors to take on the difficult task of following the biblical mandate of church discipline to ensure that their church was not being weighed down by the toleration of open sin among some members.  “We must take seriously the damage and permanence of sin,” he said.  “When we allow sin in our churches we are sapped of our spiritual power.”
4.    A return to God’s mission begins with repentance before God’s standard.  Stetzer quoted John Calvin who said, “The heart is an idol factory.”  The nature of all men’s souls, he said, is stained by sin.  “Every day we have to die to self,” Stetzer said, “and live for Christ.”  He denoted Genesis 4:7 (“If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.  And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it”).  “Sin is ever crouching at your door,” Stetzer advised.  “And for some, we have let it in.”  He noted that Christians sometimes “find ways to justify our own sin.”  But the solution, he stated, is: “The power of the Gospel must again resonate in our lives.”
Stetzer concluded by encouraging attendees not to try to live sinless lives, but to allow Christ to reign in their hearts.  “The mark of the Christian life is not the absence of sin,” he said, “but the freedom to repent and to live in service to Him.”

by: Mark Smith

LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Francis Chan, teaching pastor at Simi Valley’s Cornerstone Church and author of Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, served as Tuesday morning’s first speaker at Thomas Road Baptist Church’s InnovateChurch conference by encouraging pastors to ensure that they and their staffs are “living out the Word of God in boldness.”  “I believe,” Chan stated, “the biggest problem in the church today is that pastors are being timid and aren’t running to the Word of God enough.”
Chan’s focus was Acts chapter 4 as he examined the boldness of the members of the early church, who were chiefly unlearned and common people.  “Courage is what marked the followers of Yahweh from the beginning,” he said.  “They were uneducated, common men who were not scared—they just followed Christ.”  He expressed concern that today’s Christians are much smarter and more knowledgeable about the Gospel and ministry and church growth, but at the same time they are often “afraid.”  “God,” he advised, “needs us to be courageous.”  He urged that we need to rekindle the spirit of the early church.
Recalling the on-fire spirit of his youth, Chan said that as his education grew, his boldness somehow began to shrink.  He spoke of how as a junior in high school he called all of the seniors to share with them the message of Christ because he was concerned that he would not see them again and he was concerned for their souls.
Chan noted that often pastors and church leaders fall victim to procedural qualities of church without remembering to return to the basics of the faith.  He said that he prayed that his address would encourage in attendees the quest to return to their early days of their Christianity to rekindle that youthful fervor.  “My prayer is that this will be a time of encouragement,” he said.  “We need to believe again like when we were little kids … we’ve lost that childlike faith.”  Chan recalled the days of his Sunday school training and the teachings of David and Goliath, Daniel in the lions’ den and other great tales of the faith.  “I want to believe like when I was a kid in Sunday school, when I believed I too could take down that giant,” he said.
Chan urged attendees to ensure that the world sees us as bold followers of Christ.  “The world,” he said, “ought to see us as full of power, just like people saw in Peter and John.”  In order to accomplish this, he said, “We must constantly bring ourselves back to the obvious truths of the Bible.”
He encouraged Christians to have a two-fold focus: (1) showing the love of Christ to those we know and (2) living without fear so that Christ can reign in our lives.  As such, he said, the church should be like a family, constantly encouraging its members and helping them find their place in Christian service.
Chan recalled how an L.A. gang member came to the Lord through Cornerstone’s ministry.  But after several weeks, the man stopped going to church.  When someone asked him why, he said that church had not turned out to be what he expected.  He did not feel a part of a family in the way he had been fully welcomed into the family of gang life.
“We must pray,” Chan said, “that our churches will look like family more than the gangs of L.A.”
In closing, Chan reminded attendees that “the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the grave is within us today … there is still power in the Gospel.”
Chan implored pastors to boldly live for Christ, without concern for what others say.  “If you’ve heard from the Lord, then drown out the other voices,” he proclaimed.  He closed by referring to Acts 4:29, which he referred to as “the prayer of boldness.”  It reads: “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word” (NKJV).

contributor: Mark Smith

Kerry Shook, senior pastor of Houston’s Fellowship of The Woodlands, one of the fastest-growing churches in America, and author of One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, was the day’s second speaker.  Shook’s book, which was released in February 2008, encourages readers to face their imagined mortality in order to experience God and ministry to the fullest extent possible. The OneMonthtoLive.com website supports total life fitness and allows people to take the 30-Day Challenge. In addition, the One Month to Live Nationwide Church Growth Campaign is designed to help pastors unleash their church’s potential.
In his address at TRBC, Shook asked two key questions of pastors and Christian workers attending the conference:
(1)    “What would you do if you knew you had one month to live?”
(2)    “What would you do if you knew your church had one month to live?”
Pointing to Psalm 90:12, Shook said, “If it were me, I would take more risks to reach my community with the Gospel.”  He said that Christians, however, often fall into the “Someday Syndrome” in which we say, “Someday then things settle down, I’ll do the things God wants me to do.”  Shook then passionately stated, “We have to decide that today is our ‘someday.’”  He then challenged everyone attending the conference to “live the next 30 days of your life as if they were your last; live life intentionally for the Lord.”
Shook noted that the city of Clinton, Oklahoma had recently taken the One Month to Live challenge.  As a result, the city had been covered by The New York Times and CBS News as two dozen churches and about 1,500 people from varying denominations determined to minister for 30 days as if it were their last days on earth.  He also explained how the members of his church has twice brought their shoes to the platform and walked home barefoot or in their socks so that they can satisfy the needs of Houston homeless shelters reporting that impoverished people had no shoes.
Shook identified Four Principles for ministering with conviction:
(1)    Live Passionately.  “You were never made to live a comfortable or safe life,” he said.  “You were made to live a passionate life.”  He said Christians must develop: passion for their family; passion for their ministry; passion for Jesus Christ.”  We must, he said, “move out of our comfort zones.”
(2)    Love Completely.  Referring to John chapter 13, Shook noted that Jesus invested in the lives of His disciples as His time on earth was running down.  In terms of loving, Shook said we must “say it now, show it now and share it now.”
(3)    Learn Humbly.  Shook said that at the end of Jesus’ earthly life He humbled Himself by going to the cross.  God’s power in our lives comes when we humble ourselves, Shook stated.
(4)    Live Boldly.  “When you impact people’s lives for all eternity, you find your calling,” Shook said.  He noted that members of Fellowship of The Woodlands participate in a program called Acts of Kindness in which they mow lawns, clean out garages, rake leaves, run errands, etc., for people in Houston.  As a result, an atheist recently wrote a letter to the editor in Houston noting how he was impressed by the acts of kindness that had been done for him, with no catch.  Shook said all Christians must be asking themselves: “How can I do something that’s going to last?”
Shook closed by asking attendees: “Are you allowing God to do everything He wants to do in your life?”  And then he stated, “Stop waiting to live.”

post by Mark Smith

LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Eric Geiger, executive pastor of Christ Fellowship Miami and author of the bestselling book “Simple Church,” kicked off this year’s InnovateChurch conference at the historic Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC), where Jonathan Falwell is pastor and host of the conference.

Geiger began by examining Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz’s shutdown of all 7,100 of his stores in February 2008 for a period of three hours ago in order to retrain them on “the essence of Starbucks.”  He saw that his employees had begun to just go through the motions of being the best coffee store in America.  Mr. Schultz took the time to retrain his employees so that they would get back to their core responsibility.  In an employee memo, Schultz said the goal of the closure was to improve what he termed the “Starbucks Experience.”

Geiger made a comparison to today’s church, saying, “The church as a hole has drifted from our core message—the Gospel—and our core mission—making disciples.”  Geiger added, “Drift never corrects itself; it must always be addressed.”

He defined to “Common Drifts” in the church:

(1)    We Drift Toward Complexity.  He noted that the Pharisees added complex systems and rules, considering those rules equal to Scripture, which they were not.  They got lost in their own system of beliefs.  Today, Geiger stated, “we’re so busy building church programs, but we often don’t know the people in our own communities.”  In essence, such churches have forgotten their responsibility to make disciples, he said.  But in Matthew 22:34-41, Geiger noted, we see Jesus returning people to the “essence of His love.”

(2)    We Drift Off Mission.  Geiger said that the church he pastors is “a church for those who are far from God.”  As pastor, he says he attempts to ensure that everyone on the church staff is operating under the same core principles and guidelines.  He referred to the Yahoo! “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” in which the CEO of the organization found that everyone at the company seemed to have their own idea of success.  This, noted Geiger, is a recipe for failure for an organization and a church.

But how do we address “drift” in our churches?  Geiger offered some solutions, saying churches must:

(a)    “clarify the discipleship process.”  “We’ve got to move people toward spiritual growth and spiritual maturity,” he stated.

(b)    “ensure the church mission is deeply embedded in the discipleship process.”  Geiger said that the church must return to its calling to serve the community and connect with people.  (This notion was buttressed with Kerry Shook’s following message.)  Geiger stated that Christ Church Miami’s core principle is: “We must connect to God, then connect to ministry, then connect to others and then connect to the world.”

(c)    “move together in the same direction.”  Geiger noted that Hezekiah actually shattered the bronze snake that had been made by Moses because it had become an object of worship (II Kings 18).  “Today,” he said, “we need leaders like Hezekiah who will address the drift and return to the essence of the mission of making disciples.”

Where do you go AFTER the conference? What do you do with all the challenging content, information, and inspiration you receive?

We’d like to suggest NEXT NETWORKS.

We’re partnering with Ron Sylvia and Ed Stetzer of NEXT NETWORKS to offer you a coaching experience. On TUESDAY of the Innovate Church Conference Ron and Ed will be hosting a free luncheon, explaining the coaching that NEXT can provide.

Read the details here, and look for info in the first session Monday evening.

contributor: Jamie George [LU] lead pastor, The Journey Church, Frankin TN. Jamie was a student pastor for many years, and then God led him to plant a different kind of church in Franklin. He shares the challenges of that process…

Being a church planter was great.  I mean not having an assistant for the first time in twelve years and trying to figure out the fax machine at Kinkos stunk, but being a church planter was cool. Actually, seeing churches all over the place and sitting at Starbucks, watching people reading the Bible and talking about their church… well, that was kind of discouraging too… in a twisted way…
But not being under the oppression of some dysfunctional church system, exhilarating.  Of course, waking up each day, and sitting at my desk in my home office, where my wife could ask me lots of questions, well, that created a little tension. But not having set office hours, enjoying the organic ebb and flow of relationships… wow.  (In the early days there was a lot more ebb than flow).

Leaving a two million dollar youth building that we had just finished and about 500 teenagers, and moving to a town, hoping someone would talk to you… that was a little weird.  And right.  Exactly right.

Our first 3 months on the ground in Nashville became a sort of purge. The glut of shallow relationships, and a hurried schedule consumed by programming had run us hard.  When it all went away, the discontentment that was a part of catapulting us into this church planting adventure, only escalated. In the longing and questioning, vision was taking shape.

A couple of things became clear early on.

We longed for authentic relationships, and we understood that they would not happen overnight. A relationship of soul could not be found in a formula. A soul environment required risk, vulnerability, listening, slowing… While we didn’t know much, we knew one thing for certain, we were done with FDA approved, assembly line relationships, that were predictably safe and discarded when broken.

And so, my wife and I and the adventurers that we collected along the way, began to enter our own pain, and get honest about our own stories.

As we shared our own, and entered others… we discovered the souls of people.  No longer seen first in color, couth, or denomination, but seen first as image bearers of God, containers of something eternal…  It changed us.  It transformed our desires.  It affected the way we looked at success. No longer did we care about the rate of conversion, but rather our preoccupation was in the healing and transference of hope to these souls that had entered our existence.

Jesus began to love people through us.

In return we were experiencing Jesus love in us. The more we served, the more we were in rhythm with the Spirit. We started leading less and listening more.  And love found us.

And so did people. In a couple of years close over a thousand relationships brushed by. A new kind of pain arose. There was no way to be in a soul relationship with this many people. To be honest, the pain still exists. I still don’t fully know what to do. I know people need to be loved. Jesus is abundantly clear about that.

Genuine love, soul belonging, requires two important ingredients: honesty and time.  We have Villages.  People call them small groups. I think they are more like AA groups than anything else. “Hi, my name is Jamie, I love God deeply and I am jacked-up.” Every partner (some churches call them members) is in a Village.  Not 20%, not 50%, not 80%, but each person who identifies us as family, is in one.  In actuality, a small church, a manageable group of people who can take enough time to build trust, and discover the God-designed life in one another.

I can’t be in a soul environment with each person that God has brought to our church, but they can experience deep, authentic community with someone else. It takes a lot of time. Many people come and go.  It is hard. For some, the expectation is too much, the relational depth, too frightening.  But for those who are tired of sterile relationships and boring religion, we are here.  We breathe new air, together.

Perry Noble is the founding and senior pastor of NewSpring Church (www.NewSpring.cc) in South Carolina.  In eight years, the church is averaging over 8,000 people during the weekend services and will be launching 2 additional campuses this year to reach even more people.

Perry is a very gifted communicator and teacher and his biblical wisdom and leadership insights exceed his years.  God has given Perry a vision and a passion for helping people meet Jesus.  Each week, he shares truth and life application intended specifically for you.

Perry, his wife Lucretia and their daughter, Charisse, live in Anderson, South Carolina.   You can read all of Perry’s unfiltered thoughts about life and leadership at www.PerryNoble.com, and don’t worry, he holds nothing back.

contributor: Jonathan Falwell, lead pastor, TRBC

I’ve spent a great deal of time this week focusing on church planting.  I know that church planting is on most pastor’s minds right now and if it’s not, that pastor probably needs to get alone with God for a while.  But, in the midst of meetings, phone calls and emails about the subject, and TRBC’s involvement with it in the days to come, something hit me.  Although church planting is important and Biblical, churches must focus on those within the walls as well.

I wrote a post a few months ago about the “ends of the earth never being found within the walls of our churches.”  Accurate, for sure, but we also have a responsibility to foster growth in the lives of the people within “our walls”.  Now I know that everyone agrees with that statement and would certainly defend it, but are we putting as much time into that concept as we are on planting new churches?

At TRBC, our mission is to “win people to Christ, grow them in Christ and then send them out for Christ.”  All are important.  All are necessary.  But, are all getting equal attention from the pastor?  I heard Jim Cymbala this week share that he is concerned that too many pastors are equating the Christian life with service and not intimacy with God.  He said that we, too often, tell our people that we must serve and we forget to help them learn how to “be” in the presence of God.

I’ve spent some time over the last day looking back through my sermons over the past year.  I’ve also looked back at my schedule and recalled the meetings I’ve held, discussions I’ve had and conferences I’ve attended to see where my attention has been focused.  And, I must say that the sermons I’ve shared on Sundays at TRBC have been fairly balanced.  However, I must also say that the meetings and discussions I’ve had with our staff over that same period have been more focused on church planting, missions, etc.

Neither are wrong.  We must be involved in all aspects of the Great Commission.  But, I think I need to spend equal time thinking inside the walls as I do outside the walls.  On January 1, I made a “resolution” that I was going to focus this year on our members at TRBC.  I am going to be intentional about meeting their needs when I’m able.  I’m going to focus on their Spiritual growth as well as my own.

I made a commitment on January 4 to TRBC that every sermon, every speaker, every conference and every activity we have this year will be focused on how to live the successful Christian life.  I told our members that we are going to spend our time talking about practical steps we can all take to become better followers of Christ.

I started a sermon series on January 11 entitled, “Life:  The Ultimate Game.”  This series is based on the Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew 5:1-2, we are told that Jesus climbed the mountain and gathered His disciples around.  It then states that, “He opened His mouth teaching…”  We pastors need to make sure we are spending a lot of time listening to the words Jesus spoke so we can know how He wants us to live.  And, we need to share those words with those who sit “within our walls.”

In 2009, I am going to preach sermons based on Christ’s teachings, sermons explaining the doctrines of the faith, sermons that will help our people know how to study His word and how to grow in their relationships with Him.  We’ll still plant churches.  We’ll still send people to reach the world.  But, we’re going to spend a lot of time growing!

Kerry Shook is one of today’s most gifted communicators offering a clear, contemporary and creative teaching style. He is the senior pastor of Fellowship of The Woodlands, one of the fastest-growing churches in America.

Kerry and his wife, Chris, founded Fellowship of The Woodlands in 1993; and since then, the church has grown to 16,380 in average attendance each weekend. Fellowship of The Woodlands, now Woodlands Church, is one church in three locations with its Fellowship campus in The Woodlands outside of Houston, Texas; a satellite campus in the Humble/Kingwood/Atascocita area; and its newest location in the Tomball area. Future satellites are in the planning stages.

Kerry believes that church should be engaging and fun, calling it “The Best Hour of Your Week”. He strives to eliminate the barriers of boredom, unfriendliness and fear that keep people from experiencing not just religion but a relationship with Jesus Christ. His messages are relevant, and his illustrations memorable.

Chris is the Director of Missions and Women’s Ministry at Woodlands Church. Her missions work has touched thousands of under-resourced people locally and in numerous countries around the world. Her Women’s Ministry is one of the largest in the country, providing fellowship, worship and Bible study opportunities to hundreds of women each week.

Kerry Shook Ministries is a worldwide television ministry that broadcasts to a local, national and international audience.  Pastor Kerry and Chris can now be seen by millions in 50 states and over 200 countries worldwide.

Kerry and Chris’ first book and New York Times best-seller, One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, was released in February 2008. The book encourages readers to face their own mortality and live life to the fullest. The OneMonthtoLive.com website supports total life fitness and allows people to take the 30-Day Challenge. In addition, the One Month to Live Nationwide Church Growth Campaign is designed to help pastors unleash their church’s potential.

Kerry and Chris have been married for nearly twenty-five years and have four children.

Register now for the 2009 innovatechurch conference

contributor: Dr.H.L. Willmington, dean, Willmington School of the Bible

Here we refer to the doctrine of the Trinity.  It has been said that one may well lose his mind trying to understand it, but lose his soul for rejecting it!

I.    What are some false views in regard to the Trinity?

A.    The error of Unitarianism—This says the Father is the creator.  The Son is the creature, and the Holy Spirit is only an impersonal force.

B.    The error of tri-theism—This says that the Trinity consists of three separate (but cooperating) Gods.

C.    The error of modalism—According to this view there is but one God who simply reveals Himself through three different modes, or roles.  For example, a particular man could be considered a “husband” to his wife, a “father” to his children, and an “employee” to his boss.

II.    What are some proposed illustrations to explain the Trinity?

It should be said up front that there is no earthly example that fully explains the mystery of the Trinity.  Yet, throughout church history various attempts have been offered.  Some are totally unscriptural while others possess some limited possibilities.

A.    Unscriptural examples:

1.    A three-leaf clover—Each leaf enjoys the same stem, but this is a poor illustration of the Trinity because these leaves can be separated one from the other, and you cannot separate the Trinity.

2.    The three states of water (liquid, vapor, and solid)—In its natural form, water is liquid.  When boiled it turns into vapor, and when frozen, it becomes solid.  This, too, is a poor illustration of the Trinity.

3.    The three-fold nature of man (body, soul, spirit)—Man possesses body, soul, and spirit, but they can be separated.  At death the body is buried; the soul (the spirit) goes to be with the Lord.  You cannot separate the Trinity.  Therefore this, too, is a poor illustration.

4.    The three parts of an egg (shell, white, yolk)—These three parts can be separated, thus making a bad illustration.

5.    A tree—A tree has roots, a trunk, and branches.  But as in the above examples, these three entities can be separated.

B.    Possible (and partial) examples:

1.    A triangle—This is a fairly good example of the Trinity because it has three sides, and yet, it is one triangle which is indivisible.

2.    Fire—A fire must have three things to exist.  They are not the same, but if any ingredient is absent the fire ceases to be.  These are: fuel, heat, and oxygen.

a.    Remove the fuel and the fire goes out.
b.    Lower the heat and the fire goes out.
c.    Take away the oxygen and the fire goes out.

3.    The nature of light, consisting of three kinds of rays:

a.    Chemical Rays—rays that are invisible, and can neither be felt nor seen.
b.    Light Rays—rays that are seen, but cannot be felt.
c.    Heat Rays—rays that are felt, but never seen.

Some have said this is a good illustration of the Trinity, because chemical rays are invisible and could illustrate a type of the Father (can neither be felt nor seen).  Light rays can be seen but cannot be felt, thus illustrating a type of the Son.  Heat rays illustrate a type of the Holy Spirit because they are felt but never seen.  This is a possible illustration of the Trinity.

4.    Time—Consisting of the past, present, and future.

5.    The dimensional example:
For all practical purposes our world is a three-dimensional world (excluding the fourth dimension of time), where all objects possess height, length, and width.  Thus, let us imagine a book which measures 9 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 1 inch in height.

We may correctly conclude:

a.    There is but one single book involved.
b.    There are, however, three separate but unified dimensions involved.
c.    These dimensions are not the same, but cannot be separated from the other two without destroying the book itself.

contributor: Dr.H.L. Willmington, dean, Willmington School of the Bible

Four foundational facts about our Creator:  In part one and two of this series we examined the first two.  Now we explain the third and fourth.

I.    What is involved in the statement that God is One?

God is not only a Spirit, he is not only a Person, but he is One.  Probably the greatest and most descriptive summary statement in the entire Bible about God is found in Deut. 6.  It could be called the theme of the entire Old Testament, and indeed, of the whole Bible: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:4-5).

There are many passages in both the Old and the New Testaments that speak of the
unity of God.  Listed here are but a few:

“That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is
none else” (1 Kings 8:60).

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”
(1 Tim. 2:5).

Any discussion in regards to this attribute should include the fact that God is not only One, but the ultimate unified One!

A.    What this attribute of oneness and unity does not mean.  It does not mean God is simply the sum total of all His attributes, nor are these attributes added to God as a woman might adorn herself with various costly gems.

B.    What the attribute of oneness and unity does mean.  It means each attribute is perfectly united with all other attributes, yet maintaining its own uniqueness, identity and function.

II.    What is involved in the statement that God is a triunity?

We begin this all important study with the quotations of two well-known theologians:

B. B. Warfield:

There is only one God, but in the unity of the Godhead, there are three eternal and co-equal Persons, the same in substance, but distinct in subsistence. (James Orr, ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 5)

Robert Culver:

Two expressions have been traditionally employed to designate certain inner relations between the Father and Son, and the Father and the Son with the Spirit.  These two expressions are the eternal generation of the Son by the Father and the eternal spiration (or procession) of the Spirit from the Father and the Son.  They began to be employed about the time of Nicea (A.D. 325).  They expressed in scriptural language the idea that the Son and the Spirit were eternally with the Godhead.  John 1:14 refers to our Lord as the “only begotten of the Father.”  John 14:16, 26 and 15:26 speak of the Spirit as “proceeding from the Father and the Son.” (The Living God, p. 96)

From these statements and scriptures we may deduce the following:

A.    Each member in the Trinity possesses within Himself the whole being of God along with all the Divine attributes.  This is to say the Father is not to be viewed as one third God, etc.

B.    The only distinctions between the members are in the ways they relate to each other (submission) and to the rest of creation (mission).

1.    In matters of submission.  The Son is subordinated to the Father, yet fully equal with the Father.  The Spirit is subordinate to the Father and Son, yet fully equal with the Father and Son.

2.    In matters of mission.  It was not the Spirit who sent His Son to this earth, but the Father.  It was not the Father or Holy Spirit who became man and died on the cross, but the Son.  It was not the Father or Son who came at Pentecost, but the Holy Spirit.

C.    This tri-personal form of being is far beyond our ability to comprehend.

It is a kind of existence far different from anything we have experienced and far different from anything else in the universe. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 255)

D.    Thus in light of the above, it may be concluded that the Trinity arrangement is factual, logical, eternal, effectual, and totally incomprehensible!