An Unexpected Divine Connection

I had quite an adventure on Saturday night! It highlighted lessons on love, the unity of faith in Christ, ministering in faith, and small-group ministry.

In the afternoon, I took an Uber to a BBQ for Christian fellowship and prayer. My Uber driver was conversational, and I learned he was a Presbyterian pastor. He asked many questions and discovered that I’m a Christian. When he asked what church I go to, I explained that many of my beliefs challenge the religious status quo, but I preach the same gospel message of salvation by faith in Jesus. I believe in one church in the city, relational fellowship, and participatory gatherings. I believe in a multiplicity of elders and Jesus himself as our pastor. Even though I meet differently and don’t hold the label of a specific institution, I recognize the Holy Spirit’s work in various groups, fellowship with them, receive them in Christ, and work to build up the body of Christ. We are all growing in Jesus!

He invited me to preach at an outreach in an impoverished area that evening. I thought that was quite remarkable! Many other pastors would be quite suspicious and never want me to preach if I don’t give them a label for a particular sect of Christianity I identify with!

My theology clashes with some Presbyterian beliefs! However, more traditional denominations are much more likely to be charismatic in Latin America. I said, “I love visiting places like that. Do you receive healing ministry?”

He said, “Yes! Of course!” and recounted how God healed a family member of cancer. So I said, “I’ll go.” I was happy to visit an impoverished neighborhood as long as I was free to pray for people! I left the BBQ after a few hours and took an Uber to the pastor’s house, then rode with him to the outreach. We stopped on the way in a rich, closed condominium to pick up food donations.

I often challenge status quo teachings and modern church traditions, but that shouldn’t be mistaken for divisiveness. I believe strongly in the unity of faith in Christ and in receiving anybody who sincerely loves the Lord Jesus. The Presbyterian pastor received me in Christ when he saw that I love Jesus and believe the same gospel message, even though he knew of my challenging views of ecclesiology. (How the church functions)

I also saw that he loved Jesus. Wherever people sincerely love Jesus, the Holy Spirit is working, and we bless what God is doing among them and build up God’s people. I might see some things differently than you, but if you truly love Jesus, you’re family!

A Beautiful Place for the Holy Spirit’s Move!

This neighborhood is full of leaky wooden shacks. The one we visited has a partly dirt floor. Our Christian meeting place was a tent with open walls and heavy rain blowing in and spraying us. Cell phone coverage was failing. These are the places I love! I recorded a few short clips of the church’s women singing praise songs, and many people enjoyed seeing them. The previous week, I had shared some clips of street-dwellers breaking out in singing praise, and people loved it!

I shared my testimony, then read from First John chapter 4 and talked about love as the message of the gospel. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love begins with receiving, as we see that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Love is perfected, and the invisible God is seen through us when we love others as Jesus loved us.

Love is the law of heaven, the message and aim of the gospel, the dominating reality in God’s glory. Holiness is all about love. God loves you, Jesus gave his life for you, and we receive forgiveness of sins and new life to be restored to love. Love brings life just as sin brings death. Love was embodied and fully manifested in Jesus Christ, and we see God as we behold Jesus. Eternal life is knowing Jesus and participating in God’s love. We prayed for everyone who requested and included them in ministering to each other. According to the best of my ability to evaluate at that time, everybody was healed one by one. Pain left, people felt disease leaving their bodies, and were left light, full of joy and peace. Yes, that’s how they described it! “I felt it leave.”

Are Small Meetings Lesser Than Large Crusades?

I don’t believe in charging to minister, although I do believe in free-will giving. But most places I minister, we are actually bringing help to the people, giving to them materially. That doesn’t make me a “lesser” minister. Being the servant of all is greater in God’s kingdom. In fact, we may sometimes experience much greater manifestations of the Holy Spirit in small, unknown gatherings than many have in big events. Things add up and multiply, and thousands and thousands of people encounter Jesus in power.

When I commented on a Facebook post today about how using false prophecy to raise money has confused people and hurt the cause of the gospel, someone responded, “Well, God gave so-and-so a worldwide ministry and a huge platform, and not you.” I’ve heard others make similar comments, suggesting that a large platform is God’s endorsement of a person and justification for all their practices. They suggest that nobody with a smaller platform has the right to criticize anything! Such logic could not be more flawed! The size of your platform is not the measure of God’s approval or disapproval of you!

Whether people encounter Jesus in large crusades or small gatherings, the important thing is that they are encountering Jesus! God has done great things in big events like Reinhard Bonnke’s crusades. At the same time, there are relatively unknown Christians who have raised the dead and seen thousands healed and delivered from demons in small groups and ordinary settings, one day at a time, and made disciples who are doing the same. Some of the people on big stages have done far more to create resistance to the gospel than to promote it. The big stage is a responsibility that can be carried faithfully or abused, but it is not “superior” to small gatherings.

I just came across a website called TheElijahChallenge.org. Although I have different views on some points, I found it remarkable how many of their articles confirm what I’ve written in the last few years. They are a movement focused on reaching people who have never heard the gospel by preaching as Jesus did, with a demonstration of God’s power in healing and deliverance. They bring Jesus and the gospel, not all the religious trappings, labels, and traditions.

They focus on rural areas unreached with the gospel, finding a person of peace, demonstrating God’s kingdom, and making disciples in houses. They also do large gospel crusades when appropriate, but the focus is on small and little-known ordinary contexts, not the big stage. Millions of people have come to Christ. Countless miracles have happened in the movement, including the raising of the dead. The founders of this movement don’t even feel the need to share their full names, and they have experienced much more in God than many well-known ministers.

Jesus did preach and minister to crowds, but he discipled 12 men and a few women who went along with them. One disciple who faithfully shares Christ and ministers in God’s power every day ends up seeing thousands of people encounter Jesus in the course of their lives. A single disciple being a faithful witness to Jesus in everyday life may experience more salvations, healings, and deliverances than are happening in some whole big institutional churches. There’s a time for big gatherings and small gatherings, but it’s quite an error to assume that “small” is “less” than the big platform, or that the size of the ministry budget is the measure of God’s favor. The Apostle Paul not only worked making tents to pay his own way, but he also financially supported his ministry companions. That didn’t make him “less,” as many people assume today!

Small, ordinary settings may be more effective than large events at making disciples who preach the gospel and walk in God’s power every day, and the power of multiplication by making disciples quickly surpasses growth by addition. It’s so much more effective to have disciples of Jesus multiplying in small, everyday contexts than to have large numbers of immature, spectator Christians gathered in large numbers at big events and dependent on a few leaders.

Honoring People’s Desire To Give

At the end, they organized the distribution of food donations. There was rice, noodles, cooking oil, and ground beef. One little bag of noodles was left, and the pastor gave it to me and laughed and said, “This is the offering for the preacher!”

People started coming up and insisting I take bottles of cooking oil, bags of rice, and noodles to thank me for coming to minister. Imagine that place with wooden shacks and maybe even dirt floors, and people want to give me food! I would rather they keep it! But I’ve been advised to receive when people want to give, to honor their generosity, and Jesus said to receive what they give you when you minister and eat and drink what they set before you. He didn’t say, “demand.” He said, “Receive!”

Then they wanted me to have coffee with them. I haven’t been eating sugar or carbs at all because I’m losing weight, and the coffee had sugar, but Jesus said, “Eat and drink what they set before you.” This is part of God’s wisdom for missionaries. In some places, they advise you not to drink the coffee because the water might not be great. But I had sweet coffee with them on the porch of a leaky wooden shack with a partly dirt floor, rain pouring all around.

The pastor said he would take me home. On the way there and back, we talked quite a bit and developed a precious friendship. We had much more in common than you might think I would have with a Presbyterian pastor! He was retired and drove an Uber to evangelize his passengers, like my friend Jose Coelho does!

The pastor started having stomach pain after drinking the coffee. I was fine, but he was in so much pain, and I was praying for him when we arrived at my apartment. The pain didn’t let up, and it was so severe that he wanted to go to the emergency room, so I offered to accompany him.

He went to the bathroom and vomited when we arrived at the hospital, but was still feeling strong pain. They were going to do several tests on him. He said, “You can go home if you want,” but I replied, “I’ll stay a little longer.” I was singing, thanking, and praising the Lord. In a little while, he sat up and said, “It’s gone. I’m completely better.” He didn’t want to be in the hospital waiting until midnight, so he talked to the doctor, apologized, and said, “I’m completely fine now. It was prayer. You can cancel the tests.”

We went from there to his house. His wife was completely deaf in one ear, an elderly relative was weak, and another relative had back pain. I had a little soup and meat at their house, and we prayed. The back pain left completely, the old lady was strengthened and got up, and his wife heard out of her previously 100% deaf ear. We prayed several times, and she was still hearing as if at a distance, but she had previously heard nothing. I shared that we believe God’s word is continuing to rest on her and work, and if needed, we can pray again for the audition to be fully restored.

Finally, I took an Uber home. What an adventure! I made such a good friend, and he knows some recovery houses that I haven’t been to yet, so I look forward to visiting them with him in the future!

Don’t Be Religious About Being Non-Religious!

1st Peter 4:8 says, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” And if love covers a multitude of sins, it surely looks past the many superficial things that people may divide over. It sees beyond imperfect doctrine, imperfect understanding, and different perspectives. It sees beyond labels like “Presbyterian” and our preconceived notions of what those labels may mean. Love doesn’t envy or boast. It’s not arrogant or rude, irritable or resentful, and doesn’t insist on its own way. It looks for the best rather than being quick to believe the worst. (1 Corinthians 13)

Religiosity judges by appearances instead of judging with true judgment. If the Presbyterian pastor were bound in religiousity, he would have been quick to judge me by flawed religious standards and appearances rather than by the heart. And if I had been bound by religiosity, I would have wrongly judged him in various ways rather than seeing that he loved Jesus.

People can become “religious” about being “non-religious.” They pre-judge people whom they deem to be “religious,” based on outward standards. But it is actually they who have become religious by attaching so much weight to superficial things and different perspectives, rather than seeing the heart of a brother who loves Jesus. What is most important?

I’ve had wonderful fellowship with people who were Episcopalians, Brethren in Christ, Wesleyans, and other denominations. A few years ago, I was called to pray for a Catholic couple, and it was clear that the wife knew and loved Jesus. She was bothered by the practice of praying to Mary, but was still within the Catholic church. We had a wonderful fellowship that went beyond any labels.

The Elijah Challenge and other missionary accounts tell of “Messianic Muslims.” Evangelists show them, using the Koran, that Jesus is the Messiah and superior to all others. They are convinced of Christ’s power by healing and deliverance. They are baptized, but call it “circumcision in water.” They remain culturally Muslim. They no longer go to the Mosque every Friday, but neither do they go to church every Sunday. They are discipled in homes. This is how much of the Muslim world is being evangelized! Many tribes Bruce Olson shared the gospel with in Colombia came to Christ. But the way they “have church” doesn’t fit with many Western Christians’ preconceived notions.

Jesus said they would know we are his disciples by our love for one another! I’m not talking about the error of an ecumenism that suggests all ways lead to God! No, Jesus is the only way to the Father. Rather, I’m talking about looking past culture, appearances, traditions, and prejudices to see the heart. So what if they call baptism “circumcision in water?” Did you know that Baptism and circumcision have the same meaning in scripture? Is what they are doing essentially the same? So what if you’re Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, Messianic Muslim, Baptist, Catholic, Quaker, or no-label! How did you meet Jesus? Do you know him? A lot of people with religious labels have never met Jesus, and others have met Jesus yet may come under a variety of religious labels.

Do other groups have everything right? No. But neither do we! Can we discern between what is of little importance and what is most important? Have they encountered the same Jesus we have? Have they believed the gospel? Does God’s love abide in them? That’s what matters! If so, they are our family in Christ! Bless what God is doing among them, and where correction is needed, let God give us the grace to share correction and also be aware of our own need for correction!

My beliefs often challenge status quo religious ideas, but I believe strongly in the bond of love among all who love Jesus. I proclaim the same message of salvation through faith in Jesus. He is the Savior of the world!

Ephesians 4:1-7 (ESV) I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 

John 17:20-23 (ESV) “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 

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