I don’t play music or speak outside anymore. Especially not at anything called a festival. This is because the only reason I tour anymore is to release kids from poverty, to ask the audience to sponsor a child through Compassion International. And, truth is, folks have a hard time paying attention to one guy with a guitar strumming and talking in the Summer heat...especially when there’s no shade...and there usually isn’t...and there’s funnel cake in the air. If I can only play for Compassion’s kids ten times a month (we limit my schedule to that) then I choose to do the gigs held in ideal listening environments: air-conditioned churches and colleges mostly, sans sun and funnel cakes.
So, you understand, don’t you, why I said “no” to Joan when she asked me to come play and speak at her church’s festival at three in the afternoon in the middle of a dirt field at an “ag center” without shade trees?
Then my friend and booking guy Ben told me more about Joan and her church and I had to change my mind. I had to meet this woman and her church.
Joan’s a member of Hilltop Assembly of God. Actually, she’s the pastor’s wife. A while back Joan got the idea to hold something she calls a “tea” - I have no idea what this is - to raise money for something missions related. The missions group she had in mind didn’t work out and so she went looking for someone else to give to. She called Compassion International and a guy named Mark from their church engagement division called her back. By the end of that first conversation, Joan was convinced that what Compassion does is worth supporting.
Joan and her church decided to sponsor an entire CSP project in Ethiopia serving dozens of families for $20,000 a year. They raised that money in all sorts of creative ways, enlisting the help of their entire church, and paid for last year’s CSP sponsorship with money left over. And they’re doing it again this year with the goal of not just sponsoring their project in future years but also giving “seed money” to other churches so they can multiply it and sponsor CSPs of their own through Compassion International. This was Hiltop’s idea and not Compassion’s, by the way. No one’s done this sort of thing before.
The festival was a fundraiser, sure, but so much more. It was created to celebrate what Compassion International and this church are doing together, to create awareness about poverty, and to ask people in the community to become child sponsors. A mock-up of an Ethiopian home complete with chickens and a dirt yard was constructed. Vendors paid to sell their wares out of tents. A former Compassion child from Uganda, now an adult, spoke to the crowd. I played. There were concessions and face painters and blow-up things for kids to jump in. And I’ve never had better sound or better treatment in general at any festival.
The best part was meeting Joan and her team of volunteers. Together they inspired me with their story and their stats (I love me some stats):
69 child sponsors are in the church
99 children are sponsored by them in 24 of Compassion’s 25 countries
12 child advocates in the church (people trained as volunteers to serve at Compassion events like my concerts)
About 40K raised for CSP so far (Joan, please correct me if I’m wrong on that number. I didn’t write it down.)
Now, how large do you think Hilltop Assembly of God is?
On average, when I speak about Compassion International to a group of people, 15-20% will sponsor a child. But that’s a little higher than normal. On the lower end, recently, a church of about 40,000 sponsored just over 1,000 kids after their pastor did a great job talking about Compassion with them. That’s 2.5%. So, working backwards, with 99 kids sponsored by Hilltop, it would make sense to guess Hilltop is a church between 3,960 people (2.5%) and 495 (20%). Following me?
But Hilltop Assembly of God has only 96 members and 200 people attending on Sunday morning (a lot of those are kids)!
That means that more than a third of those in attendance are sponsoring children through Compassion International. And that’s not all they’re doing. This church is also ministering to people in their own community and supporting missionaries around the world and caring for orphans in the third world as well. This church isn’t only supporting Compassion’s children, but many others experiencing physical and spiritual need at home and around the world. And everyone is involved in the efforts, creatively raising awareness and funds to care for people.
Take Emery, for instance. I met Emery and her mom at the festival on Saturday and I caught some of her story on tape. Here it is.
I have never seen this percentage of generosity on behalf of Compassion International before. And, according to Mark, neither has Compassion. But we’d both like to see it again. If you are a pastor or church leader and you would like your church to be involved with Compassion International, please go to Compassion’s page for church partners and learn more about how your congregation can doing something together to release children from poverty. You might just change your own children for the better in the process.
Thanks Joan, your army of workers and Emery for the inspirational Saturday.
"If you’re doing everything right,” he said, “you’ll grow.” These are the words of a church leader I once had lunch with. I was co-teaching a weekly bible study in the Nashville area at the time. And this guy thought we were doing something wrong since our little bible study was growing slowly.
Sure, we were a college-aged bible study meeting thirty minutes away from the nearest college. And, yes, people in our little group mentored high school students, fed the homeless, loved their enemies, worked with the poor overseas in the Summer and out gave (percentage wise) the larger church congregation we were a segment of some weeks, but, we weren’t growing fast enough and that, I learned over a plate of barbecue, is how church leaders know if they’re doing everything right - it’s what matters.
At the time of Pentecost in the book of Acts, with Jesus having just left the planet, there were less than 200 people still following Him. Thousands were healed, fed, preached to. Five hundred witnessed Jesus’ ascent into heaven after raising Himself from the dead. But less than 200 remained. Was Jesus doing something wrong? I wondered.
But Peter, this church leader pointed out, swore thousands into the Christian church in a week! Peter spoke and multitudes swarmed and stuck. This is the case throughout the book of Acts really: Paul, Peter, James, John and company traveling and speaking and serving people and seeing the churches across Asia and Rome flourish. Therefore, my lunch buddy deduced, if we’re doing everything right in our churches then our churches will be big and growing bigger quickly.
Of course Jesus and Peter were both doing things “right,” I think we can assume. Yet their congregations had very different growth patterns. And if that’s true then numeric growth is not the most important or accurate indicator that we’re doing things right (what God wants). So what is?
Did you know that when church membership numbers are cited in the book of Acts they are always accompanied by a statement about the church’s “fear” of God and/or care for people?
Acts 2:40-47 With many other words he (Peter) warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
What the book of Acts seems to be emphasizing most then is not the importance of numeric growth alone but the reason for the growth (fear of God and care for people) and the result of the growth (more people fearing God and caring for people). A church does not (not historically) have to be big to fear God and care for people. Sometimes people who fear God and care for people form a large church: The largest church in the world is over 900,000 Koreans. And sometimes they form small ones: 59% of U.S. churches (that’s 177,000 churches) are made up of less than 100 people. The majority of American Christians (25 million of us) are in churches of 100-499 people. (Source).
What I’ve concluded from the many New Testament stories about church is this: The size of a church is not good in and of itself, but the people in it, what they believe and value and how they then live together sure is.
This is also proven by my life experience. I’m in 100 churches a year. Churches of all sizes. In the last month I was at a church of over 40,000. And this weekend I was in a church of 250. And both churches are packed with good people believing right things and caring for those around them. It’s the lives of Christians in these churches that inspire and impress me, not how many of them assemble under one roof one day a week. And, you can rightfully call me arrogant I suppose, but I think God feels the same way. Don’t you?
At 2PM Central Time today, right here, I’m posting the story of one church that is doing things right. Come back to read their story.
You’ll probably have to wait until Tuesday to hear it, but do I have a story for you? It’s about yesterday, Saturday, and some crazy people I met in Maryland.
But today. Today, I played and talked at Pete‘s church - the church Pete is part of, not owns. It was jarring at first to be there. It’s like a bizarro version of the church I’m part of. We and they meet in school cafeterias that smell exactly alike. Our cafeterias are both packed with chairs that have to be stacked when we leave each Sunday and we both have speakers and a sound system that have to be torn down every week too. The only real major difference between Pete’s church and mine? Actual rocket scientists and members of Bush’s cabinet are part of his church and, um, we’ve got me and Brian and Redneck Neighbor and, uh, well, that’s not even close to the same thing huh?
Anyway, he and his wife and their very quiet daughter took me out for lunch - Thai food. I’ve never had Thai food. Chinese food, unfried and sweeter. Yum. An attorney who works for International Justice Mission and his wife and very well-behaved kids came along too. As did the pastor’s college-aged son and a friend of his. (I remember being in college and calling a beautiful girl my “friend.” I also remember marrying that girl. Yep. I do.)
Some people - and Pete’s one of those for sure - somehow give me more life and energy than they take or I can give them. I didn’t I was coming to his church this morning - didn’t connect those dots at all. Very pleasant surprise. Pete’s one flaw? He’s slacking on his blogging at the moment. He’s Twittering instead. (Twittering?) So, stop by his “blog” will ya? And ask him to post something new, something with a subject and a verb and capital letters mixed in with lowercase ones...every day...because we care...and, seriously, he has a lot to offer us.
So now, with a happy stomach and a flight that doesn’t leave Baltimore for a couple hours, I’m resisting the smell of bread and “cheese food” emanating from Aunt Annie‘s a few feet away from me. And after I publish this post (and buy a pretzel and a cup of “cheese food") I’ll watch a movie on my laptop and begin my sabbath. No work tomorrow. And that means Tuesday - hopefully Tuesday - I’ll be able to tell you that story I mentioned earlier. Invite every cynic to meet you here Tuesday...along with every person who thinks bigger is always better, especially those church leadership guys (bless their heart) who think success = attendance. ‘Cause I have a story to tell. Yessir, I do.
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Update: I’ve been at the Baltimore airport for 6—count ‘em—6 hours. 1-2-3-4-5-6 hours. Our plane was grounded in Rhode Island all afternoon. They say it’ll be here any minute, and then, finally, I’m heading home.
While I waited, I watched There WIll Be Blood. I would love to watch some cartoons right now. And wash my soul. Wow, that was dark.
Maryland is the only state with an official sport: jousting. And Edgar Allan Poe lived (for a time) married his cousin and was buried in Maryland. I know, exciting stuff. Maryland, I’m stoked to be heading your way this morning. Guys on horses and guys kissin’ cousins. What more could one want for the weekend?
Seriously, I am excited about this trip, but not because of jousting or a museum for a dead writer guy. I’m headed to a church that is throwing a party for Compassion International. Essentially, that’s what it is. It’s an outdoor festival-style event, tickets are sold, bands play, and the money goes to support a Child Survival Project.
My friend William is one of many wise people I wish I spent more time with. I wish he lived next door and didn’t have a real job and I didn’t work on Saturdays when he doesn’t. I wish this because he makes me laugh, he’s a great listener, he asks me and himself hard questions, he’s slow to speak, and he thinks great stuff like this:
God knows something we seem to still not get. His way works any time, any place and under any ruler. It does not matter who is in charge. Loving your neighbor works and changes things. (consult history for details)
...We must be able to call out the good (what Jesus would do) and the bad (what he/we shouldn’t do) in any setting or group. To do this we must not find ourselves completely wrapped up by one side because no side will ever be totally aligned with God’s kingdom purposes and we could find ourselves supporting things that are not of God.
As well, there is a deep tendency among people to submit to a tribal/geographic/family nature that says my group is better than your group. My group should and must win because we are right. The kingdom of God knows no such ideas and is universal (for God so loved the __________). We as Christians are not allowed to have enemies.
