Grace and Peace

We are in the final hours of 2006.  As I take a moment to reflect about the year, I must say that I am grateful to God for what He has done in my life, my family, and His church.  For me, God has shepherded me through some health issues, bouts with depression, and spiritual battles.  I have not always been faithful, but He sure has.  Part of His provision for me has been the family and church family He has given me.

My wife is without a doubt my closest friend, biggest fan, and best advisor.  I am blessed by her daily.  We have been married for 28 1/2 years and I love and appreciate her more today than the day we were married.  Marital love doesn't have to grow stale and dull; it can be exciting and fulfilling for a lifetime.  Thank you, Becky, for all you are and all you do. 

I am also blessed to have three healthy and loving children.  Becky and I are in that transition stage with our kids.  They are no longer youngsters who have to be supervised and instructed.  At 25, 22, and 20, they all are well on their way in establishing their own identities and lives apart from us.  That is a bittersweet realization.  Part of me misses being their hero and the focus of their love.  I remember playing games, throwing the ball around, wiping tears, and sharing adventures.  It all seems like yesterday in my mind.  Now they are grown and not dependant on dad anymore.  It has been a harder transition than I thought, but I am learning to enjoy being not just a parent, but a friend to my adult children.  God bless you, Josh, Sarah, and Ben.  There will never be a time when your dad doesn't love you and pray for you.

Another great provision of God and blessing in my life is my church family.  If I began naming names, it would take multiple pages to list those who have impacted my life.  Thank you staff members of Enon Chapel (present and past).  You have loved me and walked with me through so many experiences.  I appreciate your loyalty, Godly examples, and gracious forbearance.  Not only have staff members blessed me, but the membership at large has as well.  Past and present members are precious to me.  You have prayed for me, forgiven me, and given me the privilege of being your pastor.  I love you all.

2006 has been a great year.  Yet, I have a real sense of expectancy and excitement as I anticipate what God will do in 2007.  Let's end this year and begin the new one with hearts that are yielded to Him.

If you enjoy the acoustic guitar, give a listen to this version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."  It is well played by Brad Sondahl.  And just in case you aren't counting for yourself, there are only 3 more days til Christmas!

In the history of the church, Mary has often been been portrayed as a kind of other-worldly figure. If you look at some paintings of Mary, she often looks so peaceful and saintly that you almost forget she is a real person. That's unfortunate because Luke makes it clear that she is very real, with very real doubts, very real questions, and a very real faith. Nowhere is this more apparent than in verse 38 of Luke Chapter 1:

“I am the Lord's servant, May it be to me as you have said.”

Without exaggeration, this is one of the greatest statements of faith in all the Bible.

The cast of "Wondrous Gift" has been preparing for several months for this week's presentation of our Christmas music/drama.  You can be part of the celebration, by attending tonight at 7:00 PM or tomorrow morning at 11:00 AM.  I have witnessed some of the rehearsals and glimpsed small parts of the show.  I believe it will be an encouragement to you as you prepare your heart for Christmas.  If you can't join us for one of the worship services, please join us in praying that God will use this work to draw hearts to the Saviour.

Charles Wesley wrote the lyrics for nearly 6,000 hymns.  I thought I would feature one of his Christmas hymns today.  Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus is noteworthy for the wealth of spiritual truth it proclaims.  You can find salvation's story (from start to finish) contained in its magificent words.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

I have been enjoying rereading Lewis Drummond's biography of C. H. Spurgeon.  Today, I happened across this quote from Spurgeon:

“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”

I took this quote as a timely reminder not to become wise in my own eyes.  Instead of priding myself on my wealth of knowledge, I should depend on God daily for His wisdom and direction.  There is no wisdom apart from God.

I found the piece below in my research file and thought it might be of interest to those of you who are concerned about the Great Commission.  By the way, please don't forget the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.  Consider giving your biggest Christmas gift to the effort for world evangelization.

Key Statistics on Generous Giving

 

It has been said that God’s people possess God’s provision to accomplish and fulfill God’s purposes in the world. Indeed, according to Christian financial advisor Ron Blue, “Eighty percent of the world’s evangelical wealth is in North America—and the total represents way more than enough to fund the fulfillment of the Great Commission.” Think about this statement as you consider the following statistics:

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The World’s Great Spiritual and Material Poverty

• A majority of people alive today do not know the Savior. This includes 1.19 billion Muslims, 811 million Hindus, 360 million Buddhists, 228 million ethnoreligionists, 23 million Sikhs, 14 million Jews, 768 million agnostics, and 150 million atheists.¹
• Of all the people who have ever lived, it is believed that half of them are living today.²
• About 1.6 billion people have never heard the life-saving good news in this sentence: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).³
• More than 1 billion people live in absolute poverty. This includes 700 million people living in slums, 500 million people on the verge of starvation, 93 million beggars, and 200 million children exploited for labor.²¹

The Church’s Unprecedented Growth

• The church has grown more in the 20th century than in all the previous 19 centuries since the time of Christ combined, with almost 2 billion adherents worldwide.¹⁸
• Every day 166,000 people hear the good news of Jesus Christ for the first time.³
• Every year, 27 million people profess faith in Christ as Savior for the first time.³
• The current ranks of 81 million believers in China are expected to swell to 135 million by 2025. The 50 million faithful in India could mushroom to 125 million by 2050. And today’s census of 90 million Christians in Africa is likely to explode to 1 billion in 2050.⁶
• Evangelical Christians comprise an estimated 35 percent of the U.S. population, or about 100 million people.²²

The Church’s Great Storehouse of Wealth

• In 2000, American evangelicals collectively made $2.66 trillion in income.²³
• Total Christian [including nominal] income in the United States is $5.2 trillion annually, nearly half of the world’s total Christian income.⁸
• Worldwide, Great Commission Christians have personal income totaling $6.8 trillion a year.⁴
• Over the next 50 years, between $41 trillion and $136 trillion will pass from older Americans to younger generations, suggesting that roughly $1 trillion to $3 trillion in wealth will change hands every year.¹⁰

The Church’s Squandering of Resources

• In 2000, nearly 97 percent of the entire income of all Christian organizations was spent on, and primarily benefited, other Christians at home or abroad: $261 billion spent on ministering to Christians, $7.8 billion on already-evangelized non-Christians, and $0.81 billion on unevangelized non-Christians.⁵
• The average donation by adults who attend U.S. Protestant churches is about $17 a week.¹¹
• Among church members of 11 primary Protestant denominations (or their historical antecedents) in the United States and Canada, per-member giving as a percentage of income was lower in 2000 than in either 1921 or 1933. In 1921, per-member giving as a percentage of income was 2.9 percent. In 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression, per-member giving grew to 3.3 percent. By 2000, after a half-century of unprecedented prosperity, giving had fallen to 2.6 percent.¹²
• Overall, only 3 to 5 percent of Americans who donate money to a church tithe (give a tenth of) their incomes though many more claim to do so.¹¹
• Thirty-three percent of U.S. born-again Christians say it is impossible for them to get ahead in life because of the financial debt they have incurred.¹⁴

Faith and Generosity Are Linked

• Among evangelicals, almost 90 cents of every donated dollar goes to their churches. The proportion drops, however, as people’s spiritual intensity and commitment to Christ decline.¹⁵
• In 2001 American evangelicals gave a mean of $3,601 per capita to nonprofit organizations, which is high when compared to other demographic groups.¹⁶
• From 1968 to 2000, members of U.S. evangelical Protestant denominations gave larger dollar amounts and larger portions of income to their churches than did members of mainline Protestant denominations.¹⁹
• In 2001, American evangelicals gave four times as much, per person, to churches as did all other church donors in 2001. Eighty-eight percent of evangelicals and 73 percent of all Protestants donated to churches.¹⁶

The Potential for Funding the Harvest

• If members of historically Christian churches in the United States had raised their giving to the Old Testament’s minimum standard of giving (10 percent of income) in 2000, an additional $139 billion a year would become available. ¹⁷
• Eighty percent of the world’s evangelical wealth is in North America—and the total represents way more than enough to fund the fulfillment of the Great Commission.⁹

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¹ David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2000: Interpreting the Annual Christian Megacensus (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 2001), 551.
² Bill Bright, quoted in Ron Blue with Jodie Berndt, Generous Living: Finding Contentment through Giving (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 201.
³ Barrett, 52.
⁴ Barrett, 659.
⁵ Barrett, 661.
⁶ Barrett, 405ff.
⁸ Barrett, 400.
⁹ Blue, 201.
¹⁰ John J. Havens and Paul G. Schervish, Why the $41 Trillion Wealth Transfer Estimate Is Still Valid: A Review of Challenges and Questions, The Journal of Gift Planning 7, no. 1 (January 2003), 11-15, 47-50.
¹¹ George Barna, How to Increase Giving in Your Church: A Practical Guide to the Sensitive Task of Raising Money for Your Church or Ministry (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1997), 20.
¹² John L. Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, The State of Church Giving through 2000 (Champaign, Ill.: Empty Tomb, 2002), 40.
¹⁴ George Barna, Barna Research Archives: Money, Barna Research Group.
¹⁵ George Barna, quoted in Survey Finds Americans More Generous Last Year, press release by World Vision, July 22, 2002.
¹⁶ George Barna, Americans Were More Generous in 2001 Than in 2000, news release by Barna Research Group, April 9, 2002.
¹⁷ Ronsvalle, 51.
¹⁸ Barrett, 19 and 551.
¹⁹ Ronsvalle, 23.
²¹ Barrett, 34.
²² Larry Eskridge, Defining Evangelicalism (Wheaton, Ill.: Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, n.d.).
²³ Barrett, 657.