Floyd & Sally McClung

During a 24 hour prayer watch in the early hours of December 17th, somewhere around 3:00 AM in the morning, while standing on the back deck of our team house here in Cape Town, one of the young people working with us saw flames shooting high up into the sky a couple kilometers away in a community called Masiphumelele. ‘Masi’ is one of the communities where we serve the poor.

The young lady who spotted the fire quickly woke up others on the outreach and they began to pray for God to stop the fire. Within minutes it began to rain and the fire was quenched.

But the damage was already done to people’s small shack homes. The fire burned 160 homes and left 600 people homeless. Within two hours the young people participating in “Ten Days for Jesus,” a Christmas outreach during December, were on the site of the fire. But the rains were hindering the help they brought to the people forced out of their homes. So the team prayed again. This time they prayed for God to stop the rains. Once again, God extended his hand and the rain stopped. Rescue operations got under way.

It was a long weekend of removing rubble from the home sites, distributing blankets, food and materials to begin rebuilding, and working besides the people to reconstruct their tiny shack homes.

And it showed 30 young people on the outreach that God answers prayer.

It was a tragedy that the fire happened in the first place. Sadly, fires in the townships are common on Friday and Saturday nights. Mostly they are caused when someone is drunk and accidentally turns over a kerosene cooking stove.

We are committed to long term solutions to the housing problems of the poor here in Cape Town. We can’t do much to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged people, but we can help one family at a time, one life at a time.

And we can serve besides people in their times of tragedy. Listening, getting involved, serving where needed, and praying expresses the love of Jesus. We understand in times like the fire what Jesus felt when it says of him,
“Jesus was moved with compassion for the crowds because their problems were so great - they didn’t know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36

Click here to view a slide show of some pictures of the damage to Masiphumelele. They are also on the photos page.

Click here for original article

Understanding the disparity of those who call themselves Christian in America.
A new national survey co-sponsored by Leadership. Reported by Helen Lee.

Jennifer Hua identifies herself as a Christian. A 35-year-old former attorney studying Christian counseling at the Wheaton College Graduate School (Illinois), she has gone to church all her life and is a lay leader in her suburban Chicago congregation. She furthers her spiritual development by daily Bible reading, prayer, listening to and singing worship songs, and interacting with other Christians. And every few months, she carves out time for a silent retreat. “I do all of these things because I know from past experience I need to recalibrate my mind and my heart to be in tune with God,” she says.

James Smith also identifies himself as a Christian. He attended church as a child, but his attendance was minimal as a young adult. He believes in God, occasionally attends Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan when his time-consuming job in the finance district allows, but he does not often participate in other activities to further his spiritual life. He has a Bible but rarely opens it; what leisure time he has he spends with friends, most of whom are of different faiths, and he does not necessarily believe that his God is any different from the one his Muslim friend worships.

“I don’t think that God would be a God who would shut others out of heaven because they don’t use the word ‘Christian’ to describe themselves,” he says.

The United States is described in mainstream media as largely Christian (between 70 and 80 percent, depending on the study, identify themselves as “Christian”), and compared to the rest of the world, this is certainly the case. However, not all within this vast group of Christians are alike.

To understand the range and differences among American Christians, Christianity Today International (publisher of Leadership) recently partnered with Zondervan Publishers to commission Knowledge Networks to conduct attitudinal and behavioral research of U.S. Christians. In September 2006, more than 1,000 self-identified Christians 18 years of age and older were surveyed on their religious beliefs and practices. The results reveal a number of significant differences, illustrated by the examples of Hua and Smith. In fact, portraits of five distinct segments emerged from the study. We have named them Active, Professing, Liturgical, Private, and Cultural Christians.

Each group represents about one-fifth of those identifying themselves as Christian, with Active Christians (such as Hua) most likely to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that affects their beliefs and inspires an active church life; Cultural Christians (such as Smith) are least likely to align their beliefs or practices with biblical teachings, or attend church. Between the two is a range of beliefs, commitment levels, and public practice of the faith.

Leadership discussed the survey results with leading pastors and religious experts to ascertain the ramifications for church leaders. Three critical issues emerged:

• The local church is no longer considered the only outlet for spiritual growth.
• Churches must develop relational- and community-oriented outreach.
• Lay people have to be better equipped to be God’s ambassadors.

Faith Yes, Church Maybe

The survey shows that for nearly half of Christians, involvement in a local church body is a minimal part of their daily lives (see chart 1).

“Faith is relevant for many people, but church is not,” says Bryan Wilkerson, senior pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts. “People want to attend to the spiritual side of their lives, they are interested in God, but their experience of church has not been relevant. They say, ‘Why do I have to sit through boring sermons and old music that don’t speak to my real needs and problems?’”

“A growing element of the Christian population is disappointed with or frustrated by the local church,” says D. Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University and former consultant with the Gallup Institute. In part, this trend can be attributed to factors within local church bodies themselves, such as lack of strong leadership or teaching.

Given that 60 percent of all Christians worship in churches with fewer than 300 people (see chart 2), most Christians are in congregations that continually struggle with resource issues. Previous generations were accustomed to that, and today’s worshipers have higher expectations.

“These days, people can get good teaching, wonderful music, and excellent writing, whether through iPods, TV, or online,” says Wilkerson. “They learn to shop around and pick and choose. Then they expect the same high quality in their local church. A generation ago, the average person learned to accept his home pastor and was faithful to his local church. But now, people’s appetites for excellence have been heightened.”

As pastor of a large church himself, Wilkerson acknowledges “we probably end up perpetuating that kind of appetite by trying to be as high-quality as what we find out there. The temptation of larger churches is to compete and to be as good as the others are.”

Even for those Private and Cultural Christians who do not typically consume Christian media, access to it can still play a significant role in their spiritual development in ways that may not be reflected in the survey.

“Private and Cultural Christians might not use traditional Christian media, but I would bet they disproportionately watch [Lakewood Church pastor] Joel Osteen on cable,” says Lindsay. Cultural Christians are the group that spends the most time watching TV and using the Internet.

Spiritual growth, then, may be occurring for many of today’s Christians in non-traditional ways. Instead of attending church on Sunday mornings, many opt for personal, individual ways to stretch themselves spiritually.

“Emerging generations may not see themselves as churched, but neither do they see themselves as any less committed,” says Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Florida. “The traditional programming that churches do is becoming less essential to work out faith for many people.”

Personal or Media Relationships?

The danger, however, is that the multimedia availability of religious content helps people become spiritual do-it-yourselfers. As a result, they lack an important aspect of faith development: interaction with other Christians in community. This privatizing of Christian faith fits with the American spirit of individualism, but it may not produce Christians with enduring and long-term spiritual vitality.

“It’s fine to use religious media as an addition if you are part of a local Christian community,” says Lindsay. “It becomes problematic if you have no binding commitment to a local community and you become a Lone Ranger Christian. Before long your faith becomes something you put on and off like a jacket.”

Instead of trying to win underchurched people back to a traditional church context, leaders say the approach to bringing Private, Cultural, and non-Christians into the church is relational and outward-looking rather than programmatic and inward-focused. Lindsay notes many Christians who are not involved in traditional churches are “much, much more interested in personal connection. The ways in which they nourish their faith are through home churches or one-on-one Bible study or non-church related small groups.”

In fact, house churches have recently become a noteworthy trend in the United States. Time magazine in March 2007 quoted pollster George Barna as saying that house churches were evidence of a “seminal transition that may be akin to a third spiritual awakening in the U.S.” and that in two decades, “only about one-third of the population” will attend traditional churches.

“The old paradigm of evangelism was a transactional sharing of the gospel,” says Ken Fong, senior pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles. “I would try to get people to intellectually agree with me. But the new paradigm is different, an approach in which I invite you to walk alongside me, examine my life, and see evidence of the truth, and hopefully there will be something compelling that you see. It’s a no-strings-attached invitation to enter my life as I follow Jesus.”

Another necessary shift is recognizing that the old metrics of success may no longer apply. Wilkerson says, “We need to spend the next ten years investing in the life of our surrounding community and finding ways to regain a hearing for the gospel. Instead of going to the nursing home and holding a church service, we’re just going to go and love and serve people for years and years, until the staff and residents ask, ‘Why do they care so much?’ This won’t result in 150 decisions for Christ in a year. You might not see results for five or ten years.”

Churches that do engage their local communities may discover that what they gain surpasses what they give. At Evergreen Baptist Church-LA, the demographics of the city of Rosemead, where the church is located—Asian, Hispanic, and lower-income—differ from the congregation itself—predominantly Asian and largely middle- and upper-middle class. Fong strives to encourage the right attitude as his church engages the surrounding community.

“As we reach out to kids in the neighborhood, we tell our congregation that we don’t just do this to be good Christians. We tell them that maybe these poor kids know something more than we do about knowing God, more so than us middle-class snobs,” he says. “It’s not enough to reach out because we think it’s the right thing to do. That is paternalistic. We need to see that there is something that different people with different perspectives can show us that we’re missing.”

Hunter believes the way the church responds to the forces affecting today’s Christians and non-Christians will have significant ramifications. “As the traditional church has a rougher and rougher time, our challenge will become a motivational factor: either we build relationships with people in our communities, or we will die.”

New Need for Apologetics

The survey indicated that self-identified Christians hold a wide range of theological and doctrinal beliefs. For many, Private and Cultural Christians in particular, Bible-reading is minimally important (see chart 3). Thus, as churches encourage their congregants to engage with the surrounding communities and build relational bridges with people, they must simultaneously equip these Christians to handle the questions and attitudes they may encounter, both with non-Christians as well as with other Christians who hold different beliefs.

But the current level of biblical and theological teaching in the church may not be meeting the challenge of preparing people in the pews to explain the power and significance of the Scriptures to those who rarely read them. “I do think there is decline and unbelievable degrees of biblical illiteracy that we haven’t seen in previous generations, among all five of these categories of Christians,” says Lindsay. “People used to know their Bible, but now they can go week-in and week-out and not even know the order of the books. Many churches feed their congregants a steady diet of messages that do not require intellectual engagement or an understanding of the biblical narrative. And that is a huge problem.”

Hunter says, “We need to preach with apologetics in mind, with a rational explanation and defense of the Christian faith in mind, so that the people who are in the church really know how to phrase that to people who aren’t in the church. We should say, ‘You need to be able to tell other people what I’m telling you.’”

During one recent Easter Sunday, Grace Chapel focused on the disciple Thomas and his doubts about Jesus after the resurrection. Wilkerson told his own story of spiritual darkness and doubt, then planned a service the following Sunday entitled “Doubters Anonymous.”

Wilkerson asked people to e-mail their questions to the church, and he had three pastors up front to handle the questions. Those who attended were also able to text message questions or turn them in on a card.

“There had to be an authenticity about it that demonstrated this was real, not canned, that these were genuine questions and answers, and that it was okay to ask these questions,” says Wilkerson. “It also gave the Christians in the audience more confidence, that they now had some tools to answer the hard questions about Christianity.”

Ultimately, though, Northland’s Hunter feels that the way to counter biblical illiteracy is to equip Active Christians as teachers, ambassadors, and apologists. “We have to go out and be with those who do not know or understand. People will always default to what they know, and if they believe general statements such as ‘We’re all God’s children’ or ‘Jesus was just a representative of God,’ then that is all they will know. Unless they have a relationship with someone who can explain theological doctrines of atonement or of original sin, they will always just believe their own general concepts.”

What About Jesus?

In addition to these findings about the church, we found a most defining dichotomy over the Jesus question: Active and Professing Christians said “accepting Christ as Savior and Lord” is the key to being a Christian (almost 9 in 10), while Liturgical, Private, and Cultural Christians favored more generally “believing in God” as the main element in being a Christian. So, for a vast number of people who consider themselves Christian, Christ is not the central figure of their faith.

Leith Anderson, senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, believes that the high value placed on tolerance in this country is partly to blame. “‘God’ as a term is transferable amongst different religious sects, but ‘Christ’ is not. It seems intolerant. What we need to do is reintroduce people to Jesus, his story, his life and his teachings. Not by forcing people to agree with us, but by giving them adequate examples and reasons to believe in Christ.”

Hunter agrees that trying to provide intellectual arguments for the Christian faith will only go so far. “Christianity is about Christ, and it is about that personal relationship. We have to not focus on explaining Pauline theology, but on the person and ministry of Christ. We have to be people who live out the life of Christ. People aren’t generally interested in theological teaching. But everyone has a heart for the one who had a heart for us.”

I used the wrong language in my recent letter about Willow Creek. I described what they are learning as “repentance.” I apologize for that. The word “repentance” was not the right word to use about the study they did called “Reveal.” Below is a blog posting from Greg Hawkins clarifying what exactly did happen at Willow Creek in regard to what they are learning about spiritual formation and participation in programs and cell groups.

I want to express my respect and appreciation for Bill Hybels, Willow Creek and the huge contribution they have made to the body of Christ. If you have not read the  story of Willow Creek, I urge you to add Rediscovering Church by Bill and Lynn Hybels to your reading list. It is very inspiring and instructive.

Yours,

Floyd McClung

–

The Truth About REVEAL - October 26, 2007

Friends,

I’m thrilled to see the high level of interest and energy behind the blogosphere comments about REVEAL. But I’ve read enough postings to think that it might be helpful to provide a few facts on three issues that keep coming up. Trust me. I’m not into “spin control” here. I just want to fill in some gaps.

1. It’s Not About Willow

REVEAL’s findings are based on thirty churches besides Willow. In all thirty churches, we’ve found the six segments of REVEAL’s spiritual continuum, including the Stalled and Dissatisfied segments. And these churches aren’t all Willow clones. We’ve surveyed traditional Bible churches, mainline denominations, African-American churches and churches representing a wide range of geographies and sizes. Right now we’re fielding the survey to 500 additional churches, including 100 international churches. So, while REVEAL was born out of a Willow research project in 2004, the findings are not exclusive to Willow Creek.

2. Willow Repents?

The Leadership Journal blog started with this question, and the answer is NO. Repenting, in my mind, deals with confessing sin. There is absolutely no sin involved in this deal. Just good, old fashion learning. What you are seeing is a set of leaders coming to grips with some new facts and deciding to do something about it. This is nothing new for us here at Willow. We are passionately committed to learning. Redeeming this broken world through the love and power of Jesus Christ is just too important for us not to be in a constant state of learning. We’ve always been a church in motion and REVEAL is just another example of Willow trying to be open to God’s design for this local church.

3. Is Willow Re-thinking its Seeker Focus?

Simple answer – NO. Hybels would say that Willow is not just seeker-focused. We are seeker-obsessed. The power of REVEAL’s insights for our seeker strategy is the evangelistic strength uncovered in the more mature segments. If we can serve them better, the evangelistic potential is enormous, based on our findings.

I hope this was helpful. In any event, I’m enjoying following the dialogue. Keep it up! And let me know if you have any questions you’d like me to address.

Greg Hawkins

Click here for original article

Rarely I have been more proud of a church leader than when Bill Hybels recently repented for doing church the wrong way. I love Bill’s honesty and respect him even more than I did before his repentance.

I also found his confession deeply affirming. I have been endeavoring to teach, write, model and call pastors and leaders and fellow believers to do simple church by focusing on the basics.

Excellent programming and systems was the Willow Creek claim to fame. What Bill Hybels did was issue a public statement repenting for some of their leadership practices. After an in-depth evaluation of the success of their programs they had concluded that much of their programming had not resulted in true spiritual growth. Their conclusion was that a church that builds a dependency on programs for discipleship will ultimately fail. Bill and the Willow Creek team concluded that Bible study, prayer, discipleship and missional community are all practices that must be instilled into people in a way that makes them depend on God for growth. It always just comes back to the basics. You can’t program the basics, you have to instill them into people through one-on-one personal discipleship in a small community of outward focused people.

Reading about Bill’s repentance confirmed to me that we are on the right track in emphasizing the following three “basics” as the only foundation for training and discipling leaders and workers in the kingdom:

1. Love for God by cultivating a lifestyle of prayer, fasting and reading the Word

2. Love for each other as members of the same community by intentionally investing and discipling in one another

3. Love for those who do not yet follow Jesus

I would like to quote the following article from another website about the Willow Creek Repentance to give you more background.

May god strengthen us all in our commitment to live a life of simple yet focused obedience,

Floyd McClung

Willow Creek Repents?

Click here for original article

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybels’ office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry—church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage—has impacted every evangelical church in the country.

So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”?

Not long ago Willow released its findings from a multiple year qualitative study of its ministry. Basically, they wanted to know what programs and activities of the church were actually helping people mature spiritually and which were not. The results were published in a book, Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek. Hybels called the findings “earth shaking,” “ground breaking,” and “mind blowing.”

If you’d like to get a synopsis of the research you can watch a video with Greg Hawkins here. And Bill Hybels’ reactions, recorded at last summer’s Leadership Summit, can be seen here. Both videos are worth watching in their entirety, but below are few highlights.

A young man wrote to me this week, asking how he can pray for us in Africa. Here is what I wrote him…would you join him in praying for breakthroughs and releases for Africa? We don’t ask  for ourselves, but for Africa’s 860 million people and 54 countries to be transformed by Jesus.

Thank you!

1. We are launching our first  All Nations CPx training program in Africa in February. We have over 80 applicants, all of them bearing fruit and proven in ministry, but most of them are living by faith and cannot afford the school fees. We need sponsors for the students - the fess are $1500 for three months of lectures, plus their outreach costs. (See www.all-nations.info and www.floydandsally.org for more information on CPx and All Nations).

2. We have found a building we believe will be great for All Nations offices and classrooms for our training programs. Please pray for a release of finances to lease it long term and for favor with the owners for negotiating for the lease. We are trusting for $250,000 long term to help buy land and build.

3. Please pray for male converts in the township of Ocean View - many of the men are addicted to drugs, alcohol, are unemployed, and don’t take responsibility for their marriages or families. A revival among men!

4. There has been a breakthrough among young men who have come to the lord in Masiphumelele, another township where we work. Most of these guys came to Christ through a sports programs we have initiated. Pray for these young men to be strong, to lead their friends to Christ, and for a movement of righteousness to spread among the men of Masphumelele.

5. Tend Days for Jesus. December 10-20. Ten days of intense, extreme all-out intercession and worship and outreach. Ten Days for Jesus. Partnering with 24-7 prayer. “TDJ” is for students ages 18-30. Pray the right ones will come and be changed forever!

6. We are allies with a sister ministry and together we are launching a project we are calling Africa Challenge. The vision is to send teams into every nation in Africa, and every high school in every nation. The mission is to bring a message of abstinence for AIDS prevention. Those who sign a pledge will be formed into clubs, then taught to live a holy life through the power of the Spirit. The vision is to see a movement of student disciples making disciples. We need workers to lead, organize and spearhead Africa Challenge. PRAY for workers with God’s heart for Africa. With God’s help, we can help stem the tide of AIDS and raise up a generation of militant lovers of Jesus who will lay down their lives to see Africa brought to the feet of Jesus.

7. We are yearning to see a army of 1000 church planters to go north from Cape Town into the unreached people’s and Muslim areas of Africa, then further into the Middle East, Central Asia and North India. Pray for laborers.

Thank you!

With gratitude,

Floyd and Sally McClung

There are several secrets to a fruitful life and ministry. I share them with you believing the Bible does not speak of a successful life, but a fruitful life. Bearing fruit is result of loving and obeying Jesus. He said in John 15, verses 15 and following:

“I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

“But remember the root command: Love one another.” The Message

The context of John 15 makes it clear there are three signs of fruitfulness: an intimate love relationship with Jesus – evidenced by trusting, obeying and spending time with him; a love relationship with those who also love Jesus – particularly by investing in one discipling relationships in one another’s lives; and thirdly, loving and bearing witness to those who do not yet know Jesus.

Here are a few of the secrets of a fruitful life that I have learned through the years.

1. Put down and cultivate roots. There is no fruit without roots. Roots give us strength. They bring stability when the wind blows. Roots mean we belong. A rootless person is a person who floats through life, never having stayed long enough or committed deep enough to really give himself or herself to a place or a people. Roots give us depth. In times of drought people with roots will survive, even thrive, while others dry up. There are seasons in everyone’s life of dryness. But a person with deep roots draws from the water that flows far beneath the surface. There are different kinds of roots: emotional roots, relational roots, cultural roots, and spiritual roots. Love the place God puts you. Love the people God joins you with. Invest your life in a small community of people where you are known, held accountable, and are loved.
2. Water the ground where you want to see fruit. Water the soil of your heart with prayer. Water the lives and the community around you with prayer. Pray daily for those God has put in your life: your neighbors, work associates, fellow students. These are the people you are called to reach with God’s love. Water the ground of their hearts with lots of loving, intentional acts of kindness. Invest in their lives. Do prayer walking. Pray and fast. Get up early and stay up late to pray for those who don’t know Jesus. There will be no fruit without watering the ground through prayer.
3. Sow abundant seed to reap an abundant harvest. Mark 4 teaches us that the seed is the good news of God’s love. The sower in this parable sowed extravagantly. Bring Jesus into every conversation and every relationship. Jesus taught that there are different kinds of soil in people’s hearts. Regardless, we are to sow the seed of good news extravagantly. Sow with a view of finding some good soil. When you find that soil, give attention to it. Don’t attack bad soil, but pray for good soil to receive the seed of God’s love while you keep on loving those who hearts are hard, stony, and covered with thorns.
4. Co-operate with God’s pruning process. God cuts away dead branches and even some good branches to prepare us for being fruitful. Don’t despair when the going gets hard. That is part of the process of God preparing us to be fruitful. Trust God when it is hard. Invite God to do a deep work of shaping your character and teaching you His ways. Believe His promises when it is a dry or difficult season. Don’t ask God “Why is this is happening to me?” Instead, ask Him, “What do you want to teach me?” Stay faithful and you will be fruitful!
5. Patiently trust the Lord of the Harvest for a fruitful harvest. Don’t “grow weary in well doing.” Stay by the harvest field. Wait on God while you wait for people to respond. There are times of sowing, and times of reaping. Don’t miss the harvest because you left the field too soon!

My prayer for you is that you will bear fruit, the fruit of a love relationship with the Father, a love relationship with a few others you live your life with, and love for those who don’t know him.