Turfidist, a Religious Disease

I want to warn you that if you live in our small community this post could either tick you off or make you jump and yell "Yes!". I know that writing a post like this will make me unpopular but the truth is never popular where sin is present. It makes me sad to write a post like this but no one else is willing to talk about it outside of the walls of their own church. Moaning and groaning and complaining will not change things but action will. 

In our small town there seems to be an attitude that I call "Turfidist". I have heard comments from pastors such as, "If you do not attend church in our community you should not minister here" and "If you are not part of our congregation I do not want my men meeting with you". There is also an attitude of jealousy among the church leaders which showed itself on the front page of the local newspapers where some complainted at a city meeting that some churches were getting treated better in regard to the city's signage policy.

I want to make two points about these attitudes.

1. I believe it would be a good thing if the pastors of our town would apply the Bible to whether someone who goes to church in another town but is doing ministry in our town.

Mark 9:38-40 (The Message)
38 John spoke up, "Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn't in our group." 39-41 Jesus wasn't pleased. "Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice."

Jesus, the son of our Creator, told His disciples not to interfer with the work of those who were casting out demons in His name but were not part of their group. It would seem a good thing for someone to be doing the work that God has called them to do especially if they are ministering to people others are not. I believe we should rejoice in the work of someone who is able to reach those we cannot.

It seems that Jesus is telling us to rejoice when someone not in our group is experiencing success in sharing the gospel with those who do not attend church. My view of ministry is it takes place more outside of the church than inside. Jesus went to the countryside to minister more than He did in the synagogue and maybe we should be too. 

2. As far as the signage conflcit is concerned it would be good for leaders to look at the stats on what causes people to visit and then become a member of a congregation. In the studies I have seen here is the percentage breakdown on why people began to attend a church.

   1%     Special Need
   2.5%  Walked in

   5%     Pastor
   2%     Visitation
   5%     Sunday School
   1.5%  Evangelistic crusade
   3%     Church program
 81%     Friend or relative

In Matthew 10: 1-23 tells us about how Jesus sent out the 12 disciples to minister. The verses talk about healing and casting out demons which both involve some form of personal contact. From the stats above and from scripture we find that people respond to a relationship. As pastors we should be more focused on building relationships and rejoicing in the victories other churches are experiencing.

I have had the opportunity to sit in on monthly luncheons in our community and at one of these a miniter asked asked if the other pastors had the same difficulty he was having in growing their congregations. None at the meeting were experiencing growth and could not come up with ideas on how to touch those who were not attending church.

Our community and surrounding county has about 52% of people not attending or associated with a church. It would seem to me that when we shop, go out to eat or attend an event at one of our local schools 52% of those we come in contact with probably do not attend church. According to the above stats only 5% of those people will be drawn by the pastor but 81% will be drawn by a personal relationship with someone else.

You might be asking yourself "How do I apply this post to my life?"

1. Use scripture in battling any "Turfidist" issues in your life. If someone is sharing the gospel in areas of your community that you are not touching then rejoice that Jesus is being shared.

2. Remember that it is relationships that draw people to Jesus. It is how Jesus operated. God created us to need relationships and that is how the church in the 1st century grew. If it worked then it will work today. Afterall it is the standard Jesus set for us.

If you live in our town or in our county I encourage you to take the following survey and share with me what your idea church would look like. My Ideal Church  

180 Days of Waiting

As I walked around on my job today praying about certain circumstances in my life I heard the Holy Spirit gently say for me to do three things over the next 180 days.

Those of you who know me will wonder if I can actually do this but here is what I heard:

1. I will make no entries to this blog for 180 days but I will continue to write REAL Men RoCK.  

Warning At REAL Men RoCK  I write from the heart, am sometimes raw with passion, and will from time to time make you feel uncomfortable.

2. I am not going to be involved in any church leadership or other organization leadership for the next 180 days.

3. I am expecting that on August 2nd, 2010 that the Holy Spirit will show me the results of me having done the first two things.

Thanks to all of you who have visited this blog and especially those who have commented.

Larry Clark

I shared these things with my wife, Kat, and as I did I realized something major is going to happen between now and August that will challenge me to the core. I told her tonight, "You just watch my dream job is going to be presented to me during these 180 days. I am going to have to have the faith to turn it down because I know that I know that at the end of 180 days God will honor that I obeyed His Holy Spirit."  

I need someone reading this post to come along side of me and hold me accountable to the three things the Holy Spirit has told me to do.  

Books and People - Make a Difference

I lived for forty years not liking to read or meeting new people. For forty years I wasted opportunities to explore the world and share in the experiences others where having. Consider for a moment all of the words of wisdom and stories of excitement I missed that are found in the pages of books and in sharing life with people.

Somewhere in my forties I heard someone and I believe it was Charlie "Tremendous" Jones say, "In ten years you will the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read."  I began to read good positive books, ones on real life stories, one about history and even some fiction. I began to grow from the new things I read about. Some of the books on positive thinking talked about breaking out of the chains of loneness and meet new people. As I began to let the walls down and allow people to get to know me I found that some of them actually liked who I was despite the fact that I was a mess.

Now in just a few days I will celebrate my 60th birthday and I can honestly say I have lived more in the past ten years because I have read books and allowed people to know me and I have gotten to know them than I did the prior 50 years. I know that because of the books I have read and the people I have met I am a more balanced person.

So I want to encourage you to go to both new and used book stores and browse the shelves and find one book that speaks to you. Within the pages of a book you can find examples of people who have experienced what you are or who have the same type of dream you have and you can be encouraged. I also encourage you to find people who will accept you where you are and are willing to help you move forward. 

Remeber ten years from now you will be the same person you are except for the books you read and the people you meet.

Passion and Heart

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you know that I write about what is on my heart at the moment and I write with passion. Being transparent can cause people to question why I am sharing what I am sharing. They can get irritated or at least uneasy because they might even know or think they know why I am sharing what I am. I purposely do not share names of people or even groups or organizations that I am talking about because that is not important. What is important to me is to share what I am experiencing. 

If you look at the number of readers of this blog there have been several hundred and some are local readers but most are in other states or even countries. I know that somewhere within that group of readers there is at least one person who is experiencing what I am and is looking for someone who understands. Every now and then I get a letter like the one I shared yesterday and I know that the Holy Spirit spoke through me.

Because I write with passion and I write from my heart I probably offend people. I apologize if I have ever written anything in such a way that has given you clues to what has tripped my trigger. My intention is to share what is on my heart not who or what has triggered it. 

For 45 years I lived holding my passion and feelings inside. I did not share them because some people told me I should not share them because the feelings I had might upset people. For years I lived in a protective bubble and I will not go back to hiding my feelings. So every now and then I will have to write a short letter of apology. I do not apologize for sharing what I am feeling but I apologize that I did not protect the ones who triggered those feelings.

God created us to have emotions and passion. I think He can deal with them or else He would not be asking us to pray. 

Father, if I have had a wrong attitude when I write in this blog I ask You to reveal that to me and then help me correct it. Thank you for touching one heart with this post. My Your Holy Spirit bring people freedom and may what I write bring You glory. In the power, the authority and the name of Jesus Christ amen 

An Example of Ministering to People without an Official Position

Mr. Clark,

I found your blog through another blog one man revival. I really like some of your viewpoints on things. I like the "Have you been Jesus lately?" Jesus does amazing works through us. I think it is incredibly realistic than you can be Jesus to someone.

Perhaps what I found most interesting was your interpretation of Matthew 25:14-36.

A little about myself...
I was raised in a Lutheran church in PA where we hardly ever missed a Sunday. Sometime around my senior year of high school our church approved to spend $300,000 on church renovation instead of sharing a youth pastor with another Lutheran church and paying half his salary of around $18,000. I wondered why would God do this? Why would good people of the church do this? It turned me off to not only my church, but to organized religion in general. I still believed in God, but I didn't believe in anything else.

Unfortunately the renovation project took place throughout my freshman year in college... at #1 party school Penn State no less. It was a poor time in a man's life for him to lose his direction, but I did. The next four years was filled with a lot of drinking and time wasting. I graduated 3rd in my major, but you could hardly ever find me at class. (I graduated high school first in my class and am sure I could have gotten at least a 3.9 if I had applied myself instead of my 3.63) If there was a bad habit, I picked it up... idleness, drunkeness, tobacco use. A lot of my friends and teachers saw I had a natural gift of smarts and figured I should achieve great things. Most of my finance buddies defined 'great things' as an accumulation of stuff and for the first time in my life I measured self worth by net worth. (I was raised on a dairy farm where people/family were more important than family.) I was on a course to kill myself either physically by my lifestyle or spiritually the way I was distancing myself from God. (Emotionally I was already dead to the pains of the physical world. My compassion for others was gone.) During this time I was approached by a lot of people that wanted to "push" me towards their religion or beliefs. This only turned me off even more. I wanted a relationship with God, not a theological principle or building. Things were bad and then God intervened...

I had a lot of great jobs lined up; despite my lack of effort and poor attitude employers could see that I had potential and were willing to pay a lot of money for it. Then my uncle's hired help quit and I chose to return to the farm where I would be making $18,000 a year, roughly about 1/3 of my best offer. Despite the fact that I thought I was dead to feeling, God showed me that a piece of me was still willing to put family first. I came home a started to make small changes: my low salary prevented matieral things so I found the joy in God's day, a new calf, sunshine. Being on a farm makes you work hard and when you are dealing with animals you have to be responsible. The idleness stopped. I still couldn't find the nerve to go back to church. I didn't think I was worthy to go. It was weird. I felt like I could never go because of where I had been in college. Reluctantly I went back and it is good. I haven't cared about denomination, or offering, or church council.... I focused on being there when God needed me.

Anyways, I realize God has forgiven me for my sins and to be honest that isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is how I wasted his gifts I was entrusted with. He gave me so much and I just wasted it. It was hard for me to shake, then roughly 2 years after college I had an interesting "revelation." All of this was in preparation to serve God. During all of that idleness, I learned to play guitar and have become a good guitar player and can worship him through music. I struggle with tobacco addiction, but I realized if I could quit that, I could quit anything. I saw the struggles that some people had with booze first hand. (Before college I had always been judgemental.) Then I learned that there was no right/ wrong church or way. A relationship with Jesus Christ and God is right; anything else is just distraction.

Finally, I made the decision to learn more about God. I plan on going to seminary. I don't want to be a preacher. Jesus wasn't a preacher. He was a teacher. He lived His life teaching people how to live...and He lived it out. I'm not doing this so I can stand up in front of the church on Sundays. I am doing this so I can be the church on the everyday. God has given me great gifts, and I don't plan on playing it safe anymore as in your interpretation of Matthew 25. With a finance focus, we were always focusing on return on investment. Is there any greater return on investment than with God? If you just do a little bit everything multiplies. His love and power are awesome.

I like your blog and love your description. I wish you the best as you continue on your journey to serve Christ.

Sincerely,

Steven
I believe that each of you have a gift to share with others and I pray that you will discover your outlet for doing so. It could be at work, in a coffee shop, or at your local food bank.