On Laymen's Usefulness to the Kingdom

Recently I tweeted, "Who disheartens me more? People who want me to waste my life or people who think I need a seminary education to not waste it?"

I did not write that or this with the intention of appearing to be someone who makes a career out of criticizing the church; God has taught me a lot over the past year about how I should love the church instead of doing that. I write this instead out of love for the body of Christ and a desire to allow all of its parts to contribute what they can, for the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We can be very good at times at saying to the other parts of the body, "I don't need you."

On one hand, many in the body of Christ are content with wasting their lives and helping others to do the same: working to provide themselves with as many of their material wants as possible, spending their spare time gaming or watching television, ending a Bible study after half an hour so that they can go eat ice cream, ignoring their own and others' spiritual needs for things that are not needs at all.

On the other hand, others tend to be the theological equivalent of an armchair quarterback. They fill up Biblical megachurches that burgeon with great doctrine, where every week they receive a course in systematic from the pulpit but they don't consider themselves or me to be qualified to teach others the truth of Scripture because they have never been to seminary or earned a long list of doctorates.

Here is a question: How useful are you if your head is full of sound doctrine, God has given you the ability to teach it to others, and all you do for the body of Christ is put away chairs in the fellowship hall, if even that? And furthermore, you tear down anyone who has a desire for the "higher gifts" but is not qualified in your view (regardless of Scripture's view) to use them?

All a Christian really needs to be used by God is a willing heart and a teachable spirit. Last night, a guest speaker preached at my church's Saturday night service for youth and young adults. He is college-age and has not been to Bible college or seminary. But our pastor has been discipling him, and he did a great job last night teaching us expositionally from John 17. I know I was blessed and challenged by his message. Yet many people would look down on him and would not have let him preach in their churches because of his age or the fact that his training was informal.

For every Biblical megachurch that has arrived at some lofty level, where the pastor has become a big name in Reformed circles, where thousands of people are able to gather after the service and discuss the finer points of the limited atonement over coffee, countless Biblical, Reformed churches exist where the work is just getting started or has grown slowly.

In my church, the work is growing steadily but not without cost. We began as a Filipino church plant, Reformed Baptist but emphasizing "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist". We became a great place for Filipino Christians who were just traveling through or recently settling in our area of the US to meet each other. As you may imagine, in uniting around "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist" we had many more non-Reformed Filipinos than Reformed Baptists. A new pastor joined our church last spring and took over our Senior Pastor role last fall. (I am not saying that either of my pastors is better than the other; they are both faithful servants of my Lord, and I love both of these men!) He shifted our church's emphasis to historic Reformed Baptist doctrine and has boldly proclaimed to us a gospel that costs us everything: our old way of life, ambitions, desires, everything; a gospel that makes the world oppose us. Most people do not want to hear that. So many of the old members of our church have left, some to go to churches where they just get an emotional high and hear what they want to hear. Praise God that He has brought many new people to our church, or there would not be many of us left.

On Easter, I did not write a new blog post because my church had a sunrise service. That was our only service for the day. Already awake, several of us decided to attend another service later that day. I decided to drive over an hour to one of the Biblical megachurches and hear about our Lord's resurrection from a well-known pastor. It was one of the most incredible church services I have ever attended. The worship was euphoric, singing songs with deep theological truth, with hands up all over the room! The sermon was on point as well. It really made me look forward to attending a conference later this year with some of the people that I met there. I also got to fellowship with two of my college friends who are members of that church.

God also used that service to, once again, confirm my calling to minister in my local church. Yes, it is good to go to a Biblical megachurch once in a while. I found that very encouraging and refreshing. Yet God has given me a Biblical church in the geographic area where He wants me to live and work during this season of my life. The work of ministry that He has given me to do is within my local church, to teach whenever I have the opportunity and serve as I can in the young adults' ministry, the men's ministry, and in the church as a whole. Starting the work is hard, and sustaining it when it does not grow as fast as we would like or I do not see all of the benefits I want to see from it is harder. And yet this work belongs to God, who alone determines its standards for success and its outcome. Those willing and qualified to be part of it work, knowing that God's Word does not return void and we do this for a God whose glory will never fade away. "Not unto us" can be a dangerous prayer indeed, with discouraging results if we look only to ourselves, but "for every look at self, take ten looks at Christ", and He will give us the strength to keep working.

My calling to travel to the Philippines still remains very much alive. Going to a church where I see many Filipinos allows me to fulfill my calling to the ones that live here, but I really want to go there and serve. But of course, one person (not from my church or Filipino) told me recently that I would basically be useless there because what their young men who want to do ministry really need is a seminary education, not just a layperson willing to show them, as much as possible, what right doctrine is. I'll let God determine that. All I know is there is a need to teach men there what true doctrine is because, although so many people in that country call themselves Christians, many heresies, false gospels, and false prophets have a very strong hold there and many people who think they are saved are on their way to hell because of that. Yet the desk where I sit right now to write this post has several wonderful theological books on it where I am learning much more truth than I am able to live out. Since I do my vocational work in America, I would not be able to stay in the Philippines for very long if I were able to go. But if I, even a sinful wretch as I, could go be an encouragement to those who can stay there and carry on or start that work, that trip would pay off in eternity.

Lord, for the sake of Your glory alone, please put me on that plane. Let me never say in the end that I have wasted my life or this calling.