A baby is not a teacher

In past entries I have listed numerous biblical and present examples of new believers who, in the power of the Spirit, acted as missionaries to their friends and family immediately. As previously stated, this is a healthy sign of a changed heart, and follows a Biblical pattern.

However, there is clearly a biblical standard set for those who would presume to be teachers, thus I feel it is important to draw a line between being a missionary and being a teacher:

1 Timothy 1:6-8 Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.

First, they need to know what they’re talking about. Yes, the Holy Spirit opens the spiritual eyes of new believers and promises to illuminate scripture, but the new believer must still read the scripture in order for it to be illuminated. The law is good if one uses it properly. Confidence, persuasiveness, and charisma are absolutely worthless if the one who posses those qualities doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Hebrews 5:11 & 12 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

Second, new believers must learn the elementary truths of God’s word. From the second you’re a Christian you have something to share about how God has changed your life, but teaching scripture is another matter entirely. Baby Christians need spiritual milk before they get solid food, and they need to be eating solid food before they’re feeding someone else milk.

James 3:1 Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

Third, if we allow baby Christians who don’t know what they’re talking about try to feed others spiritual food before they themselves have started eating solid food, we open them up to being judged more strictly. I wouldn’t let a toddler try to perform brain surgery, but I would let a recent med. school graduate try to perform brain surgery for the first time. There is a big difference.

-Ethan Wiekamp

Decentralization was God's idea?

I grew up in the Church. I like Church. I really like my church. Thus, when I came across the following excerpts I took some time to really examine the scriptures and see what was going on here:

from Organic Church by Neil Cole:
God has always intended for humankind to spread out and fill the earth with His glory. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. (Genesis 9:1,7) Noah and his family tried to settle in one place, and they started a building project in direct disobedience to God’s design. God had to force decentralization with the confusion of languages (Genesis: 11:7-8)

When Jesus revealed His true incarnate self to His inner circle of leadership at His transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-6) Peter’s response was classic: “This is a good place to be; let me start a building project right now!"

Jesus commanded the disciples in (Acts 1:8) to spread out from Jerusalem until the ends of the earth are filled with the power of God. Instead, they all stayed in Jerusalem. Just as God forced decentralization in Genesis 11 with languages, He forced decentralization in Acts, this time with persecution (Acts 8:1)

By Acts 21 Paul returns to the Jerusalem church and finally the sent ones (apostles) are gone. But look at this model church: Paul is taken aside and told in private that he shouldn’t be there, that the church was overrun with legalists who would attack Paul if they saw him (Acts 21:20-26). Sure enough he is attacked and arrested, and this church tries to have the author of half the New Testament killed. If we disobey God’s will (whether in outright defiance or more subtle neglect), the consequences are an unhealthy church with messed up priorities.

Cole raises some interesting points concerning a centralized church body. According to the author of Acts (Luke), in 2:42-47, “All” the believers were together, and were meeting together “daily”. How many people is that? If we back up one verse we find a group of 3,000 people coming to faith after Peter preaches at Pentecost. Thus, at least 3,000 people were meeting together daily in this ‘transformational community’.

The mission of Christianity is to make go and make disciples; the command is very clearly, to “go”, and never, ever, are we commanded to have them “come”. Large group meetings are also clearly modeled by the early church.

When Paul goes on his missionary journeys of church planting, he would regularly write to these collections of believers, addressing them as "the church in ___", or "the saints in ___". Yes, these churches (collections of believers) are reaching out as decentralized individuals who would first "go" to their own households and friends, but I simply haven't seen any evidence to suggest that they weren't networked together in their community like the original post-pentecost church in Jerusalem.

This, of course, begs the question: what does it look like to decentralize in order to “Go”. Maybe we’ll get into that later…if you’d like.

-Ethan Wiekamp

A New Believer at Peru State Is A Missionary Immediately

At Peru State College this week I was waiting for the band to finish practicing, and ended up talking to a freshman named Piper who was also waiting.

We were small talking about how things are going at PSC when Piper casually mentioned that she had the privledge of leading a friend to Christ today. I asked how that happened and Piper told how her friend had been coming to Campus Crusade meetings for the past month. Today Piper took her friend up to the cemetery and shared the gospel with her (I guess the cemetery is one of the coolest spots in Peru).

After the meeting started, to my surprise they introduced Piper to share her testimony. She shared of growing up with a Jewish background, and living in foster homes, and Boys Town. When she came to Peru State this past fall, and started to coming to Campus Crusade meetings. In September Piper made a decision for Christ at a retreat, and her life changed.

The amazing thing to see is that after Piper came to Christ this year at PSC, she immediately became a missionary to her friends. That is right out of the pages of the Bible: (In John 9:1-41 Jesus heals a blind man and once he had received his sight he immediately went home and told his neighbors about what Jesus had done in his life. In John 4:1-42 Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman who immediately goes into town and brings back half of the town to meet Jesus. Acts 16:14-15 tells of Lydia coming to faith in Christ, and the next thing we know her whole household is being baptized.)

Sometimes I see a flawed mindset in Christian communities that goes like this: once a person comes to Christ they need to leave their friends and ‘worldly’ influences, be built up in their faith for a time, then go back to those loved ones to share Christ with them.

I get pumped to see college students who come to Christ, then turn around right where they live and lead their friends to Christ. A new believer is a missionary immediately! That rocks.

-Craig Johring

Peru State students Praying and Seeing Lives Changed

Last night the students at Peru State College invited down because Cale Lang, a student leader and friend of mine was speaking. Cale did a great job speaking on friendship, and I was blown away to see what is going on. I felt like I was stepping into a transformational community that is written about in Acts 2:42-47. The students at Peru study the Word, eat together, fellowship, and are involved on campus. But the part that blew my mind was to see that God is "adding to their number...those who are being saved." Well over half of the 60 students at this meeting have made decisions to follow Christ while at Peru State, many during this school year. Behind every thing the students do is prayer. They are constantly praying--every day there is some kind of prayer meeting or event. And God is answering by changing lives, and bringing people to Jesus. That just rocks!

-Craig Johring

Prayer and Action

excerpt of an email from Lindsey Stockwell, an FCA leader at Wayne State College:

Terah, I know I wasn't even at the meeting you had here at Wayne on
Wednesday; however, the small spark you made lit a fire through many
women's hearts. I have felt the weight of God's Spirit moving on me
about prayer for several months now, but haven't really known what to do with
it. Satan was challenging that movement with lies like, "You just
don't have the gift of prayer, wait for someone else to take up that
ministry." or "Don't worry, if you don't pray, someone else will." But God has
also been teaching me a lot about spiritual warfare and breaking the disagreements we've made with satan's lies.

In one day, the power of Christ changing our attitudes about our spiritual battles
and the use of prayer has caused many good things to happen. As a group of
women, we have been praying for so many things today. I had a one-on-one opportunity with a teammate tonight and I knew God was going to give me the chance to share my faith. With one phone call and a text message, I had and army of women supporting me with prayer during the hour I spent with that teammate. I am actually so glad I did not go with you on your prayer walk because of all the occurred because I walked inside and started a conversation with Haley. (this too I am sure was God's plan)

I'm so excited to hear what God is doing through student leaders at Wayne State who are willing to humble themselves in prayer, and follow through on what God is leading them to do. Way to go Lindsey!

-Terah Wiekamp

Righting the ship at WSC through prayer

from Chris Hruska, student president at Wayne State College:

A month ago our ministry at best could be describes as “Functional”. As a leadership team we had all the right motives, gifts and abilities yet our community consistently seemed to be suffering from division with in. We wrote out our goals, restructured and even implemented the newest ministry strategies yet the spiritual harvest was sparse and our ministry seemed to be spiraling downward into an inward focus.

What we needed couldn’t come from a popular theory or principle or any other natural means; our community desperately needed God to start working in Super natural ways. For our leaders and ministry this meant a serious, second-to-none approach to prayer.

Last week we began applying the powerful approach to prayer and the results have been supernatural. One example of this growing prayer movement that is taking place on our campus takes place happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when five girls from our ministry gather together to pray for an hour before eating lunch. Others include random and unplanned prayer walks taking place not out of a duty to participate but out of a heart felt desire to pray for our campus.

The results of these prayer are making an eternal difference on our campus! Tonight Brady Heartman and Karen Sharp lead an evangelism training seminar with 35 students in attendance; after the meeting they encourage students to take part in trash ministry and share their faith. One student had the opportunity to share his testimony and faith for the first with his neighbor. Another student, (Austin Diehm a freshman who was sharing his faith for the first time on campus) had the opportunity to lead a student who lived just 4 doors down from him in prayer.

By simply humbling ourselves, and dropping to our knees in prayer God has accomplished more on our campus in the last weeks as he as in the last two months!!

I'm so encouraged to hear the accounts of such a large number of students taking steps of faith to pray for direction and then act out on the direction that God has given!

-Ethan Wiekamp