0 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:08,000 How are key decisions made? 1 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:21,000 I made some discoveries when I stepped out of the normal way of accomplishing the church "thing" (or however you would say that :) ). 2 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:32,000 I kind of went out on a limb and decided to pursue things as if I didn’t previously know anything about “church.” 3 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:41,000 I wasn’t trying to use the old trappings and fix them or paint them, but rather to just start over and see what God wants and intends 4 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,000 and what the church was if we were to step back into the time that the New Testament was being written. 5 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:54,000 What were the principles that guided the church? Not the methods, but the principles, the truths of God’s heart. 6 00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:03,000 One thing I’ve noticed is that in our life together, in an organic life, you don’t have to make nearly so many decisions. 7 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:13,000 We had a whole docket of important executive decisions every time the leaders were together in the boardroom environment (in the old "church" world). 8 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:19,000 We were just constantly making decisions about this, that, and the other, and then passing them down to the congregation. 9 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000 Some of you guys are nodding because you have been there and experienced that. 10 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:29,000 Yeah, every monday night there was a list to go over. 11 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Frankly, the last eight years sometimes seem like it's been only six weeks, and other times it seems like a lifetime, 12 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:45,000 but, in all these years we’ve been here, you could probably count the number of decisions. 13 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:54,000 We probably used to make more decisions in an elders and deacons and staff meeting in any given Monday night 14 00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:02,000 than we’ve really needed to make in years and years of a daily, out-on-the-streets kind of life here. 15 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:10,000 As for "making decisions" about things, we in Christendom have created our own monster, our own Frankenstein, by our environment. 16 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:18,000 If you build a building and hire staff people, problems arise. 17 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:30,000 I was talking to one pastor who had a guy on his staff who had the title of "business manager," who had preceded the pastor by years. 18 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:37,000 Yet there was a very serious question as to whether the business manager was even a Christian. He only came to "church services" once a month. 19 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:44,000 But he was the "office manager" or the "business manager" of the congregation. 20 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000 So there was a big dilemma about whether or not to fire the guy. 21 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,000 He had family there and all that kind of stuff. It was a major ordeal. 22 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:57,000 And I can understand that, and I sympathize with those experiencing that problem and it being a major ordeal. 23 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 It’s not so easy just to go in and fire him. 24 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,000 But, had there been a biblical foundation in the first place, that problem would never have come up. 25 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:14,000 WHAT is a “business manager” anyway? In what sense would you ever find such an idea in the New Testament? 26 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:22,000 That’s a concept so foreign to the heart and the mind and the purposes of God and the practices of His people. 27 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,000 And of course, eventually, if you take God’s plan and God’s purpose--Abraham-- 28 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:37,000 and go to bed with Hagar--the Egyptian slave woman, the one who represents the way of the world-- 29 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:42,000 and you try to marry the business world with the church world, then you’re going to end up with Ishmael. 30 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:49,000 And the child born in the logical way, the ordinary way, will always persecute the child born of the Spirit. “It is the same now.” 31 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:59,000 So one thing, for starters, is that organic life as a family doesn’t really require huge numbers of decisions, 32 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,000 like the institutional way of life always did. 33 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000 What decisions do need to be made? 34 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:12,000 For instance, there are some saints in South America, 35 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:24,000 and it appears that there may be some saints from here joining them in the work in one of largest cities in the world. 36 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:29,000 How is the decision being made about who is going to go? 37 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:35,000 Basically, there was an acknowledgment by a brother that this was perhaps something that needed to happen, 38 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:44,000 and the timing was good and right, perhaps, for some saints to go and join them in the work. 39 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:51,000 There's been discernment that those in that city have worked out a lot of necessary things in their own lives. 40 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:57,000 They’ve demonstrated a heart of obeying Jesus and walking with Him and risking for His sake, 41 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:06,000 and yet there are some gifts and wisdom they earnestly desire that aren’t really found among their number at the moment. 42 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:18,000 Perhaps we have a surplus here of giftedness in people that could really serve the city with the group of believers down there. 43 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:28,000 And so the situation is kind of thrown up as a jump ball. Are there those who have felt like God might be drawing them in that direction? 44 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:34,000 “Well, yeah, I really felt for years that I would end up in that place.” 45 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:43,000 Well, the people living closest to you, those who are going to give an account for your soul, your closest neighbors who see your life daily-- 46 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:48,000 --what do they think about that idea? How would they view it, this urging that you have? 47 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,000 So the word of God is worked into the situation. 48 00:05:52,000 --> 00:06:02,000 “Well, you’ve been selfish and materialistic when I’ve seen you, and that can't work well in terms of being able to hear God’s voice 49 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:10,000 and fulfill His will in that particular city where there are no material possessions to be had.” 50 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,000 “Well, I don’t think I was really THAT way.” 51 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:13,000 “Here are some examples.” 52 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:14,000 “Well, maybe you’re right.” 53 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:21,000 So problems are being solved, character is being exposed, light is being shed in the context of working together. 54 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:28,000 It's not a confrontation as such, but a working together to fulfill God’s purposes. 55 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:38,000 Light comes. Then, as in Acts 15, the word of God comes with various testimonies-- 56 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:43,000 and I don’t mean "testimony" in the denominational sense, but really a Proclamation of what God has done in this situation or that. 57 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:49,000 And through the working out of all that, something emerges that seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit. 58 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:56,000 That’s certainly one way God could accomplish that task of making the decision about who goes down there. 59 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:04,000 But there’s an overall peace God gives as we bring the living and active word of God to lay bare the motives and the intentions of the heart. 60 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:06,000 Why do you want to go? What are you running away from? 61 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:13,000 You don’t like your job. You’ve always been ambitious to do this. You don’t like the weather here, but you do there. 62 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:16,000 Those sorts of things kind of come up. 63 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:24,000 And because there’s relationship to work those things out, and always has been because of the foundation we’re building on, 64 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:30,000 then I fully expect God to answer in His PERFECT timing. 65 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:36,000 We’ve seen it so many times, that in exactly the perfect timing, I mean not a week early or a week late, 66 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:41,000 that God would emerge with His answer in the midst of living stones rubbing against each other. 67 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:48,000 The pillar and foundation of truth is the ekklesia. I want to know what the truth is about what ought to happen there. 68 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:57,000 Well, in the midst of the ekklesia, in the midst of a holy priesthood, God can bring forth His word, just as He did in Acts 15 and many other ways. 69 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,000 But it's in the midst of the ekklesia of God. 70 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:07,000 And you can see it with Paul’s interchange with Agabus, and in Acts 20 when Paul is leaving the elders amid many tears. 71 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:15,000 You can see a lot of things happening involving deep relationships bringing forth the word of God 72 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:20,000 and thus a knowledge of what God’s will is for a particular situation. 73 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:24,000 There’s no committee. There's no head honcho. 74 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:33,000 But there is Jesus! Call no man decision-maker. “You’re all brothers.” You have one decision-maker--the Head of the body makes the decisions. 75 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:40,000 My hand makes no decisions apart from the head unless I have some disease. 76 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:48,000 And it’s time for the body of Christ to be so connected to the Head that we are making no decisions, 77 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:54,000 but simply responding to the Head together, in cooperation with one another and with the Head. 78 00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:02,000 Almost as a knee-jerk reflex reaction. We’re all together unified with each other and with Christ Jesus as our Head. 79