Fun Times at Church but no Revival.

Fun Times at Church but no Revival. 1988

Warning.  Mature content.

Fun Times at **** Church but no Revival (Redacted Version).

(It’s a prototype. You can do better)

First of all I would like to start out by “saying”, what follows is not critical of **** Church, Pastor ****, or any other pastor past or present at **** Church. I have read that there has not been a rival in the Church since the 1970’s. If there is ever going to be another revival it seems to me that **** Church would be a likely place for it to start. In fact I can see **** Church being the instigator and propagator of a revival. What kind of revival would it be? What would be the flash point that would start a wild fire? It would not be an outreach event. This is an awakening of Christians within the Church. Perhaps it would start at your Church. No need to wait for ****. Are you praying for a revival?

Let’s take a little journey in our minds back to the **** Church of the late 1980’s early 1990’s. Someone once asked and answered this question: What is the biggest problem in the American Church today? Answer: Ungodly pastors preaching something other than Bible from the pulpit. What was going on in the 1980’s? This for one. The book Self-esteem, the New Reformation by Robert Schuller.

**** Church was the prototype answer to this problem. Pastor **** teaches verse by verse through entire books of the Bible (expositional, grammatical, contextual, historical, etc.). The Sunday school and adult fellowship groups have topical teaching on Sundays. Bible studies during the week provide an opportunity for discussion and interaction. Believers are encouraged to study the Bible on their own. All the bases are covered. **** teaches Bible. In addition to that his sermons were in the past available on audio cassette and are now available on line. His sermons are heard on Christian radio daily. He is a published author. **** Church hosts Pastor conferences and has been doing this for decades (fix on failure). In addition to this the **** is a seminary (proactive) run under the authority and direction of the elders at **** Church (another prototype / examples other churches can follow).

So can we assume that the reason why there is no revival in the Church is because Pastor **** did not make it happen? He was too busy parsing and translating? I don’t think so. The fixing of the main problem stated is part of the ground work for revival. Also, as stated, topical teaching is left for all the other pastors. I think it would be the pastor of one of the adult fellowship groups. Think about the different groups and tell me that the group most receptive to Biblical truth and most willing to propagate it is one other than the college group.

**** Church’s apparent answers to the question “What is the biggest problem in the American Church today? Would tend to communicate to the membership of **** Church, “We (the pastors, elders, professors) got this”. Beyond praying and financial support, the solution in ongoing and in process. Here’s some questions. What is the second biggest problem? What are the top 5 problems? Perhaps problem number 2 looks a lot like problem number one. Ungodly Christian’s unresponsiveness to Biblical truth. So if we fix problem number one, surly we fix problem number two? Nope. **** Church had and has plenty of regular attenders who were in various degrees of not being awake. I would know. So what could have happened back in the 80’s / 90’s? You see, the future pastors of America were in college fellowship groups all over America. A mosaic of a guy who attends the college group follows below. He may not be average or typical. He is, I think, common.

So who is this guy? He does not even know this himself. The heart is deceitful above all things. Here’s a fun little discipleship assignment. This guy needs to go home and keep track of the following on paper for about a month:

What He does with his time

His money.

What is on his prayer list if he has one.

What he says.

What he thinks about.

Some of these are intuitively simple / general and others are more specific. If this guy is being real and also accountable he is this:

Time (for simplicity, he is currently not in college. This means that what we see here is what you get for 60 more years): during the work week he sleeps a third, works a third, has to get ready for work, eat 3 meals and perhaps run an errand. This leaves about 4 hours free per day. The free tome is the focal point. He has 15 minutes set aside for prayer and reading a chapter out of the Bible. Any little bit of free time left over from his busy day is spent watching TV. He attends a Friday night bible study if he is not too tired and if there is no “must see” TV. The weekends are more complicated but he is a regular attender at Church and the college group. He typically watches more TV as well.

Thinking: He really does not think too much. Thinking as in learning new things, thinking through issues etc. When is there time for that? He is sleepwalking through getting ready for work including 15 min of Bible reading (don’t know what I just read) and prayer (it’s about “Me” and it degrades from talking to God into just thinking about stuff {there is your thinking}). He sits down in his car and listens to the radio all the way to work and home and errands. At work he has to think about work unless there is music. He is distracted by women often and often (not occasionally), according to Jesus he is an adulterer in his heart.

What he says is all over the map. He probably does not use profanity but he brags, lies, defends himself even if he is in the wrong, gossips, is disrespectful, speaks without thinking (imagine that, Occam’s razor, jumps to conclusions which he verbalizes), spins the truth, and expresses anger verbally to and about others even though he desperately wants to be treated nicely. He is a verbal wealth of opinions and “facts” that he got from 20 plus hours of TV viewing a week for over two decades. What’s on the inside comes out when his guard is down.

There is so much more that could be deduced from the lists he has made. This is who he is which is deduced by what he does and then some. But we will get to that in a minute. A few simple questions would reveal that his spiritual giftedness is theoretical. It is what he would like to be. He displays the fruit of the spirit when his guard is up. He has been created for good works but does not perform any.

In his secular life he is average, not excellent. At church he is on his best behavior. He actually thinks he is a pretty good guy. How can we help this guy to wake up?

Well, He has another problem worth mentioning. It is a huge problem even though it is largely ignored. It has to be hush hush since it is a private matter that can’t be discussed in a mixed group. He masturbates from time to time (regularly from time to time). The problem is not as bad as it was in the past. He is making progress. This would tend to prove that his lust problem is not just a quick glance and passing thought. He is double minded. He does want to someday be married to a Proverbs 31, Titus 2 woman. He also wants something more that he cannot have and not allowed to think upon intently. Besides the fact that adultery is the worst sin (all other sins are outside the body) and he wants it. The potential cure for this is the cure for many sins.

This issue did come up from time to time at ****. One case history which is a “one off” and entirely the fault of the Bible Study leader (not indicative of what happens at **** Church is this). The short version is:

The Bible Study leader announced that during the week at X time on Y date there was going to be a guy’s meeting at the host house about masturbation. (Really).

At the meeting (a relatively small group) he’s talking about the problem and he said something that prompted me to say “you know it’s wrong because of what you are thinking about”. As the words are still leaving my mouth he is doing this hand gesture that says “stop talking”. Apparently I stole one of his main points that he did not revisit. He did mention that he did not have a problem with this until adulthood. One of the fixes was to have someone cut out any suggestive pictures out of his news magazine for him (newsweek?). In addition to this he said he was at another get together of this type and a guy sitting in the front row did not raise his hand when everyone was asked if they had ever had or now have a problem with this. Our leader afterwards said to the guy “you know, you were the only one who did not raise his hand”. The guy informs the leader that this is because he never has. Our leader informs our group that this guy was lying. Really? If Mr. Leader could avoid the problem till adulthood and then overcome it, it is conceivable that a person could never have it it. Even without His personal experience it is conceivable. In addition to that, what useful purpose was served by telling us this? Mr. Leader gave us the gift that keeps on giving as the accused felt the need to defend himself at a meeting of this type years later. What this person did share was less than useless in that he demonstrated in two ways that open communication with him on this subject may have negative consequences. Also no Biblical content that I can recall was provided.

See (hear) the short video at this link (Masturbation. Be a Christian not Aqualung):

https://youtu.be/Oy8ixaxkEII

It is short because of the very short attention span of people on youtube. The universal principles that are applicable to this sin as well as many others:

If you feel guilty, you probably are (If it’s not of faith it is sin).

In GCM terminology: “Practicing the presence of Jesus”. Translation: You are going to do this thing in the presence of the all knowing, self existing one, the Creator of heaven and earth. The One who the stars will flee from, who dwells in unapproachable light? Really?

Fasting. Going without food is harder than almost anything.

Our guy needs to know that “Go and sin no more” is not a suggestion and while it is impossible to be perfect, habitual sin is unacceptable. One of the things our guy will “learn” from fellow Christians is It (this and other things) is ok if you are struggling with this or that. “God knows”. This is so backwards. Our guy will be more concerned that people will find out about this and less concerned that God knows. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, consider this quote from a pastor who will remain nameless (not **** thankfully). From memory… “It’s OK to get mad at God. He already knows”. Wow. Tell me Pastor, are we talking righteous indignation or just plain old anger? Let us extrapolate. It is OK to covet. God already knows you really want it. It’s OK to gossip? So our guy would be undone and just want to die if his mom walked in on him when he was living at home but no problem if God knows and is there. Shall we take the Holy Spirit along for the experience as well? Our guy needs to break out of the sin confession repeat cycle depicted on the little overhead chart. Wont someone tell him how? I saw that chart at Bible Study presented by Mr. edit my newsweek. Did he tell us how to break free? Not really. He may not know. (Just hang in there. God knows what you are going through). Our guy battles sin like he is on a diet plan. Just work at it year after year and loose a pound or two. This is war against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Our guy need to experience true repentance.

In addition to his major sin issues, this guy has 20+ hours of encumbrances. See even shorter video on TV:

“What if Christians Stopped Watching TV”: https://youtu.be/q3hIHP-mSPY 10 min.

See statistics on TV viewing (Americans watch about 3 hours a day. The article linked below indicates about 5 hours, including streaming day average. Most Christians are average):

https://deadline.com/2022/04/time-spent-streaming-has-risen-18-over-the-past-year-nielsen-says-1234995563/

Last of all he is a hearer and not a doer. He forgets most of the Biblical truth he has been exposed to. He does not ponder or think in detail about anything of any importance. He heard a youth pastor once say “You know what to do to grow as a Christian. Read your Bible and pray. So WHY DON’T YOU READ YOUR BIBLE AND PRAY” He does. 15 or so minutes a day. He thinks he is a pretty good guy.

Possible solution here:

/christian-news/2022/04/hey-guys-saturday-morning-production-meeting-with-your-boss-god-creator-of-the-universe-2607076.html

So what is a college pastor supposed to do? What could have been done in the past? Let’s play a game. I will present details and a rough time line as if it actually happened. Feel free to take the parts that make sense and extrapolate to the future. The whole thing may be wrong but I doubt it. But before we do this, let’s look at two things that actually did happen. A guy that worked (**** tape ministry) got a meeting together with a guy who worked in some capacity in Christian media (radio station?) and his son, and the guy producing Pastor **** (College Pastor) audio tapes. The discussion was about promoting audio tapes by Pastor ****, former pastor to the high school fellowship group at **** Church. There was much enthusiasm about this as there was a lack of content (Christian teaching) for this age group. A vacuum? There are a few problems. First of all wishful thinking. Or to put it another way, incorrectly extrapolating a result based on observation and assumptions. If we can get (High school Pastor’s) tapes aired on a radio station the tapes could really take off. Issue number 2. None of get (High school Pastor’s) tapes were self-propagating. In other words, none of them kept selling like hot cakes because people in the group had to keep buying copies because they keep giving them away and then those people gave them away and people still want more. No vacuum to be seen. Don’t get me wrong. The tapes did get some air time. The thing missing from the mix of tapes was a wakeup call or a call to revival and no path to get there. Or as (College Pastor) put it “I want to run with the runners”. If you were not already running, you were on your own to figure things out.

The next thing that did happened was (College Pastor) suggesting that guy doing his tapes should work part time at his day time job and start a company (sole proprietorship) to produce and sell his tapes. Same problem. Lots of wishful thinking and no tapes that were self-propagating after (College Pastor) left the college group. Also as I understand, the elders don’t allow outside vendors to sell on campus. This deal should not have happened.

So let us get on with the fictional historical series of events from about 30 years ago, where no one does crazy stuff fueled by wishful thinking.

(College Pastor) has a meeting with the male leadership within the college group including Bible study leaders / teachers to discuss the issue of sexual purity (thoughts and deeds) among men in the college group. He has a tape for each one of them with content that actually is helpful and is biblical. He schedules another meeting to take place 2 weeks later to get their thoughts.

At the second meeting the feedback is mostly positive with a few additions and clarifications to the tape requested. A week later, a new and improved version of the tape was handed off to the leaders on Sunday morning with a note scheduling a third meeting. This message is ready for distribution. The plan is for the leaders to announce a guy’s get together. There will be a signup to provide enough food (and tapes). The leaders have the option to opt out. The guys from the opt out group can meet with another group. No one opts out. At the meetings the guys are informed once everyone shows up what the topic is and the specifics of what it includes. If anyone is pressed for time, they can stay for lunch and leave (don’t forget your free tape) or stay. These leaves everyone an “out”. No one opts out. The tape is played. The discussion time follows. Everyone leaves with their tapes. The tape has a note with it saying they can request additional copies (50 cents each in 1980s money was about the production cost for a tape, label, and poly box if you had your own duplicator). If you can’t afford it, it’s free. A year after this the tapes looked like they would self-propagate slowly over time. The Bible studies would individually have a duplicate meeting after a few years as the new faces vs old faces reached 50 percent. The feedback over time was invaluable as it indicated that some guys were actually overcoming their problems in this area.

The leadership started planning a **** Church activity months in advance. The first event in the series is for (College Pastor) to deliver a message on “True Repentance”. Sometime later he delivers a message on “Who has time for Time Management” Issues include an acknowledgement that many of those that attend the college fellowship group are good at time management out of necessity because they go to school and perhaps work also. They are made aware of the complacency that often sets in after you get married. They are reminded that their time on earth is their one shot to make a difference for the Gospel and the building up of the Saints. Also they are made aware of the statistics in regard to hours of television viewing and that if they don’t decide now to limit or eliminate TV viewing entirely, they most likely will mirror that statistic sometime in the future. The short skits in the middle of the messages were funny. I laughed till I stopped. One of the skits was these two guys at two different mics acting out talking to each other on the phone. “Hey! What are you doing tonight? You wanna do something? Naw. I wanna stay home and watch some toooob. Oh come on. Let’s do something. What do you wanna do? Ya know, like go see a mooovie.” Get it? handouts provided. 24 hour pie chart on one side. List with 24 hours in half hour increments on the other side. Not for planning but for self discovery. A run of colorful “You Live For TV” fridge magnets were a thing at the tape table for a while. Both messages sold well since they were individual tapes on an issue.

Next the event so long in the planning: It was simple actually. Two weeks in advance it was announced that the Friday Night Bible Studies would be meeting at Church in the Gym on MMDDYYYY. (Sunday morning announcement): “It will be big. There will be ample amounts of carbonated caffeine and snacks and you can use the drinks to push the snacks down. We will provide business cards for a good dentist in the area no we wont. Kyle Henderson will be there to play a few of his songs. Many of you saw him at our outreach at UCLA. I (College Pastor) will be teaching, It is two parts in one night. Hence the ample caffeine. It is titled “The Revolution that is You”. Since finals will be over we hope you all can make it. It will kick off some things we have planned for this summer”.

13. one (Casting off every sin) was the fit for mixed company consumption but still included the teaching of Jesus in regard to lust being equated to the desire to be an adulterer, Teaching from True Repentance: Who God is, God is always there, You are really going to sin with God right there? Self-discovery though lists of our life activities, “If you love Me, You will keep My commandments”. The problem of caring about what people think over what God says. And also that little chart with sin / confession over and over equating this with playing monopoly for 60 plus years and really by choice, going to jail and playing get out of jail cards continually. “You have heard that Park Place is a nice place to visit but you have never rounded the first corner. For those of you stuck in this cycle, this is not normal Christianity. This is baby Christian stuff.” Message 2 (“And encumbrance” ) Message 3 (yes message 2 was really 2 parts “Never forget to Do” . “And encumbrance” was primarily about TV again. Mentioning the 20+ hours a week of viewing time, but really hitting these points: Your brain on a leash. Unrealistic view of the world. Spun news and current events. Lies. Consumerism on steroids. The world views on what is true, how to live, acceptable opinions, Dr. Solomon Asch played out in real time. Wall to wall electronic noise and no timed to actually think our own thoughts. “20+ hours of TV a week is like watching other people play monopoly all your life. Your reward in heaven looks like someone sneezed out their gold filling. You look closely and discover that it is in fact a little crown. You say to this angel “Why is this photomat booth in heaven? He says “that’s your mansion. Enjoy.”” I love it. (College Pastor) being (College Pastor). When he wasn’t doing standup, he was quite loud and authoritative. In content and in tone it was epic. Part 3 dealt briefly James’ instruction to be a doer of the word. This part had a different tone to it as it really simple, positive, and proactive. “This is where God tells you the green light is not going to get any greener and you drop 400 horsepower into overdrive”. This is Saturday Morning quiet time redone. With no hard stop when you have to leave for work or school, you can take all the time you need. You can have your prayer lists, calendar, list of issues you are working through, future plans (with real thought through information. Not wishful thinking). Projects in process as you are actively involved in the work God planned beforehand for you to do. Last weeks’ JM sermon notes. Nothing falls off the horizon if it still needs attention. Important issues are thought through with notes instead of off the cuff snap decisions with incomplete information. It’s all there before God for you to pray over and ask for clarity and guidance. Besides a snapshot of what is going on in a person’s life (what you are doing with time, thoughts, money, etc. it is the current and ongoing planning and execution of the plan. Stop. Pray. Think. Plan. Repeat – Repeat – Repeat. (College Pastor’s) closing remarks pulled it together. “For those of you who have been a part of this group for the past few years, you know that we have talked about guys and girls future rolls in marriage, and in some detail about their relationships now. Three series in all. After some thought I realized that I would be remiss if I did not cover these topics as well. I know that many of you have progressed beyond the continual endless cycle of sin and repentance or those “pet sins” as they are sometimes called. I also know that many of you still struggle. We all sin and we all need to confess our sins. The solutions as we saw, are the same. And you guys here tonight. You men. If you don’t ever truly start down the road to Christian maturity, when things go bad in your life, you will always be second guessing. Is this God chastening me or is it various trials and tribulations for me to learn by? Listen! You really don’t want to take that confusion into a marriage. Your future wife is expecting you to be the leader and you don’t know which way is up. Deal with your rebellion NOW…,,,,, because you know that is what it is. Deal with it while it’s just you getting a trip to the wood shed. Ladies…. This is not the guy you want to be the dad to your future children. He can’t even be a good parent to himself. Also…you women here tonight…. You will really be doing your future husbands a favor if you have his back. What do I mean by that? If you are planning on being that Titus 2 woman, you must realize that he will probably be, at least for some time under a financial burden that the two income world may not be under. The consumerism of the world and dissatisfaction that goes along with it will be counterproductive. You may be better off without the electronic noise of TV telling you “MORE”. Do you realize that right now, as I speak the vast majority of married couples are sitting in silence in front of a TV? The wives that have not given up all hope will still try to talk to their husbands only to be told “Not now, I’m trying to watch this!!” Not so with **** and I and it should not be that way with you. While you and your future husband go through life together fighting the world, the flesh and the devil, it might not be a bad idea for the two if you to sit out on the porch swing on Saturday nights with your Saturday morning meeting notebooks, yours and his, and compare notes every week. His and yours lives are then literally and figuratively open books. While the rest of the married world is letting the problems in their marriage slow boil, unresolved and undiscussed until it explodes, not so with you. Burdens will be shared. Problems will be solved and resolved and the world and the devil have reason for concern as God has a team with clean hands and pure hearts making plans. They have about 70 hours a week to execute those plans if needed. And God willing (married adult fellowship group) will be full of other couples just like you. You know that James warns against making plans. We should say “If it is the Lord’s will…” . I do not believe it is just a tag line to add to our wishful thinking. And I do think that if we are unencumbered by sin and useless things, if we plan and pray and ask for guidance and are willing to accept answers that we really don’t want, when God does give us the green light, we should feel free to drop it into overdrive. And I don’t think God will lead you into a culdesac. If he does it will be for a reason. And most likely for a short time. So go for it!!! This is the revolution that is You!!! (fits nicely on a 90 min tape with a little to spare) Looks like this one will take off on its own. This and Saturday men’s meetings.

(College Pastor) passed out copies of the tape to every pastor and elder at a (**** ) elders meeting a few months later, The feedback in regard to the concept of *No TV and **the rather simple tweak to just one quiet time per week (planning meeting with your boss) and also ***Making an audio cassette of bible verses you are memorizing to play in the car on the way to work (re-tasking dead time, An answering machine OGM endless loop 30 sec ,no sensor foil), Were well received by the elders. So (College Pastor) thinking outside the box (“Wait…There’s a box??? Nobody told me there was a box!!! Tell me more of this box of which you speak.”") suggested that with 20+ hours a week of TV viewing time per attendee at all the churches of all the pastors at the Pastors Conferences up for grabs. the Shepherds should grab. After that a half hour was added to one of the main meetings with all the pastors at each conference to discuss theses 3 points (with the now popular, :You Live For TV” pie chart overhead). 5 years later, based on feedback from before / after surveys given at Conference attendee Churches, a conservative guesstimate of 3,0000,000 hours per year are being recovered and this number is rising fast (revival? revolution?). Pastors who can’t hang with “lead by example” of no TV are prompted to pass the task on to the college pastor at their Church.

There you go. So much fun was had. Back in the day, there were some people going around playing matchmaker in the group. Shame on them. Nudging people together that they do not really know, who don’t even know themselves. The matchmakers will be nowhere to be found after point of no return (“I do”). But sadly many Christian couples will opt out for a re-do when re-dos are not allowed. Divorce? It’s hard to be satisfied when your one eyed master (TV) tells you not to be. Addiction to pleasure as well. So much emphasis on dating, relationships and marriage in the college group while ignoring the elephants in the room. The victims of their own lives have gone nose blind to the stench. Oh that more people could have been nudged off of square one of the game. Marriage, even a good marriage is not revival or revolution. The revolution awaits.

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Outline added:

1. True repentance

A. See yourself for who you really are (quantifiable by what you do).

B. See God for who he really is

C. Never forget that God is there.

D. The standard is perfection

E. Obedience is to be immediate.

2. Casting off every encumbrance

A. TV Etc

3. Be a doer.

A. Never forget

B. Plan everything out with God.

C. No loose end or issue slips away until it is resolved if you do this…

D. Think things through. No snap decisions.

To the point of seeing yourself for who you really are, the Cretans needed this:

Titus 1: 12-13

12 One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”13 This saying is

- Wirkbot