Voice of the Nazarene 5-19-24

I'm coming to you from North Central Ohio, we share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our pastor river rate LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene.

And so I, I've been praying this week, just what God wanted to say to you. And felt like I just wanted to talk to you about our church's future, but give you a little insight of what goes on in my thinking and a little bit of the inside of the board. And some of our key leaders may be things that happen and you're not aware, are happening behind the scenes. And I'm hoping that you will get on board with us I, in this message, I would like for God to speak to our hearts, about how to take this ministry to the next level. The next level, I believe the church can grow. Jesus said in Matthew 1618 up on this rock, I will build my church she, he wants the church to be built and he wants to use you and I as workers in the kingdom for the building of ministry. There in Luke chapter 14, verse 23, he said, Go into the highways and the byways, the hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled.

Luke 14:23

Now, that may not be important to you, as long as your kids kind of get a good little place to to nestle and then off to college, and, and long as our little group and we're covered, covered at all, but let me tell you something, there are other families in the community.

There's other families across the county that need to be kept out of hell too. And they've got kids that need to find the Lord and, and it's our ministry to go out and to influence and to affect those in the world around about us. God didn't send us here to run a little house for for us a little monastery, where to be the evangelistic thrust reach the world. For Jesus Christ, I believe that God wants His church to grow. And if you study the history of the early church, it grew exponentially.

And God's plan for the local church is to grow. Let me give you an quickly three reasons why the church ought to grow. One is because of greater population.

immunity, not be aware of this.

But when Jesus was on the earth, they were 250 million people. By 2050, experts tell us there'll be more than 50 billion people on the earth. I mean, the population is exploring like nothing ever before. Here we are on the edge of a small city of about 11,000. And yet, we're ranked in the top 75 largest churches in our denomination here in America, a greater population our church is made up of people that not only live in Bucyrus, they come in from other cities, from other towns, many of our people, if not half of them are driving over 30 miles, did you know that if you have food in the trough, people will drive 100 miles to be fed, but they will not walk across the street to be fooled. A greater population we have more people to work with than we've ever had before. May I say Secondly, a greater technology. Daniel 12, verse four said that the time of the end, knowledge shall be increased. And we you may not be aware of it. But people log in every Sunday to be a part of this service that you're in right here. And from around the world, I get emails from people and other nations that I didn't even know could speak English, that say, preacher, you're our pastor, this is our church. And we tune in we do not have a church within any distance that we can ever attend. But we attend every Sunday morning. And while we're gathered here, they're gathered there. And through technology, we're able to reach him because of technology. We have people that listen every Sunday morning to the voice of the Nazarene radio broadcast. One little lady is celebrating 100 years of age and they've been listening literally for years and doesn't get out of the house to go to church, but we're her church listens by just the radio. And when people step across the threshold of the church, if they're stepping back in time, we're in trouble. We need to embrace technology we were doing Live Streaming long before COVID ever came. And suddenly churches all over scrambling trying to figure out how do you do live stream? How do you capture it? And how do you send it out. And it was something that we were already doing. Somebody said that if you're two steps ahead, you're a leader. Would it be wonderful to be a leader. But the problem is, if you're 10 steps ahead, you're a target. And I know a little bit about target practice. And then I've had people that one time were my friends, but they turned their back on me because of having gone on television trying to reach the world for Jesus Christ. I find it kind of interesting now that just a few months ago, I saw him on Facebook and on YouTube. They're going creating their own channel on YouTube and online group in their convention, so their preachers can preach and there's more pornography on the iPhone and on computer than all the channels of television put together. But if you're a little bit ahead of your time, you're going to be a target, that here's what I'm trying to say we have technology, and we're gonna reach warmth, men and women and boys and girls for Jesus Christ, then we could have just 40 years ago, technology, so the church should go because grow because of greater population, greater technology. And what about a greater Holy Spirit's power?

What about that? Here in Acts chapter two, verse 17, and 18, the Bible is very clear that at the time of the end, he said, I will pour my spirit out upon all flesh, and your young men shall see visions, and your old man shall dream dreams, I haven't had any dreams for a while. So hang on, I've been seeing visions. Moving along. I believe there is an impartation of the Holy Spirit, for in times and for such a time as this, just at Pentecost, when Jesus had been crucified and ascended and Judas had betrayed his master and committed suicide and stolen the money. And things were in a bad shape. Disciples fussing with each other, they got in an upstairs room and 70 nations had gathered for that spatial, a celebration there in the city of Jerusalem, suddenly, the Holy Spirit showed up and anointed them and they reach their generation, within six months, more than 50% of Jerusalem was converted. And I believe in this time, the Holy Spirit wants to be poured out on the church like never before, using our technology to reach this greater population than we've ever faced. And I want to tell you what's been going on behind the scenes in my thinking, I don't know that I've ever really put it down and tried to share it with everybody. But here's what we're doing here. Number one, we're letting the word do the work. Second Timothy four, one I charged the therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge that the quick and the dead had his appearing and kingdom, preach the word, what?

Preach the word, be interested in season after season reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And honestly, in all of these years, some of the things that we've done have not always been first class. At but the church is still growing, not as the rate that it could have. But I made up my mind personally, I wanted the word to do the work. I believe the secret for long term church growth is a biblical foundation. Now folk in theological circles sitting around always trying to figure everything out, bless them, and may they have a great time doing it. I'm just out here trying to make it work. But they they're saying, should we use inductive preaching? And others are saying, should it be expository preaching? Or should it be in series? Should it be? Should it be? Whatever?

Preacher What do you think?

Well, I just think you can do it all. And whatever works, let God bless it and let God use it. But let the word do the work. Now I've used props, I confess to it. I've used the screens, and I've used testimonies. I've used object lessons. But it's the word of God that does the work and it's the biblical foundation by using props, object classes, fixtures on there with all of that I've tried to be consistently inconsistent. by that. I mean, if you can't drill a hole in 30 minutes, quit boring. We've tried to put the gospel in with our necktie on it with a suit coat on it and and change the collar and try to make it favorable but always with a word of God to build the church nevers are many principles or few methods are always changing but principles never do. We never stray from the Word of God being the foundation of this ministry.

Here's the second thing we're trying to do whatever it takes to involve people in worship. in worship. The Bible says that God is seeking worshippers read John for 23. the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit. And in truth for the Father seeketh. such to worship in we need worshippers, God's seeking worshippers we live in a day when, and don't get angry with me. But we live in a day when the church has been undoing the choirs and undoing their orchestras. And mainly going to a price teams. And I'm for all of it, whatever works, work it.

But I were probably one of the few churches if the only church on the district that still has a choir, it still has an orchestra. And what I'm trying to do is to get everybody that we can involved in worship, the more team that we can have in the band of the orchestra, the more than we can have on the platform, singing in the choir, the larger we can make our praise teams and praise bands.

We're trying to get everybody that we can involved in worship, we're trying to give opportunities we've gone to separate times to services. And the downside of not having choir orchestra, praise teams, praise bands, you've got less people involved in worship, and we want the congregation involved in worship. Now, as I've studied the Scripture, Lucifer back in the eons of time, was the worship leader. And his name meant light bearer, he was not the light he thought he was, but he was not the light, he was only the reflection of the light of God. And over in Ezekiel chapter 28, is one of the most incredible little passages about the 13th verse, you'll pick it up and studied around it, but I don't fully understand it. But there it talks about all the stones that were that he wore on his body. You can read through the whole matter of all the stones, there was a Sapphire and Emerald and, and there was gold and and Jasper and on and on.

Ezekiel 28 · chapter mention

And as the light of God would hit his body was like a kaleidoscope. It reflected the light. I don't know if you understand it, I don't. But it seems as though as you read that there were literally pipes in his body and instruments in his body. He was the worship leader.

But the Bible said that he fell.

Boy, did he take a hard fall.

His influence was so great that affected 1/3 of the angels that followed him and were put out of heaven. And worship was lost.

They lost the worship. And they never found it again till about the 28th chapter of Exodus. And God instituted the priesthood.

And if you remember the priests, the high priests would wear this press play, and on it were the same stones that Lucifer had on his body. And God was saying, I'm restoring worship again through the priesthood. Now we know that we don't have that priesthood like we did then. But when you get the Revelation, chapter one, verse six, it says that we are made kings and priests. Were the worshipers now. It must really torque, Lucifer, the devil. Every time he sees you and I doing what he was created to do, and he can't do anymore, worshiping God and leading others in worship. Now there's a scripture over there in Zechariah, chapter 14, verse 17, it says, It shall be so that who so will not come up of all of the families of the earth and to Jerusalem, to worship, to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. Notice water said no worship, no rain. Are you listening? Don't worship. No rain. And rain symbolizes the presence of God and I've seen people who fought worship and they were about as dry as last year's bird's nest. But he said, no worship, no rain. And then you look at Job chapter 36, verse 27, where he made a small the drops of water, they pour down rain according to the vapor there. And we know that when vapors go up, they create clouds when when the crowd clouds get heavy, they pour down rain. So as you and I send a vapors of rain, God pours down our vapors of praise. God pours down rain and his glory upon our congregation. So if we could get so involved in worship, and get everybody worshipping, and everybody's attention off of everything else, and we literally get lost in worship.

Zechariah 14:17 Job 36:27

As that vapor of praise goes up God's glory, and rain begins to fall down upon us. Now for years, I watched the congregations as I tried to pass dry, I didn't start pastoring like every other preacher. I was an evangelist for 23 years. And so here in the mid activities of life, I went into pastoring. And I noticed that people were just looking down holding a hymnal and reading the word after word got to singing along and I was amazed to notice the young people were not holding a hymnal and they were not singing. And they were not involved in worship. And it began to worry me and I didn't say anything to anybody. But I urged our music team back in those days, could you add some praise songs, just get a praise song or two, where we're just praising God, it's not singing about all the theology of the past, and we need that. But we need to let God know that we're going to praise them when we show up. And they begin to interject some of those praise songs. And the next thing I knew, our young people had begun to sing, and pretty soon their hands were going into the air. So we begin to try to blend and mix praise and traditional songs together, that didn't go well. Tensions begin to build. That's why they had worship wars, music wars, it's about destroy the church in a lot of places. And when I saw the tension, I said, something has to be done. I didn't know what anybody else is going to do. But I'm gonna go to two services. And we're gonna have music that speaks to somebody here and music that's fixed as somebody, and we freed up the people to sing songs that glorify God and spoke to their soul. And suddenly this church began to explode to begin to go to another level, and we got our attention off of other things off of tension, and, and, and battles and, and disagreements, and we begin to worship God.

Now, I made a mistake in my early pastoring, especially here, and I'm, I'm sorry about it, one of them. One of my mistakes, and I know you know, of all the 1000s of others. One of my mistakes as soon as new people came out, tried to make workers out of them. Big mistake. I think we all involve them. But if I could, if I could redo my ministry again, instead of constant training my attention on getting new people involved in just being a worker, I would try to get them involved in worship, because worship, honors God and rejuvenates. And when the day of Pentecost came, and all those they Hey, they begin to worship and boy, did it attract the crowd. But what I've learned about church grow is Let the word of God be paramount, and get everybody that you can involved in worship. Here's the third thing I care about people.

Rick Warren said a church won't grow beyond its ability to care for its people. Sam Walton, Walmart famous. He said that people come through their doors one at a time. Irregardless of our size, I still make hospital calls. I still preach funerals.

I still do weddings, one at a time.

I still get on the phone and I call people when I see they're missing. I get on the computer and I email people let them know I'm glad that they visited one at a time. We care. We care. And caring for people is probably the most evangelistic ministry that we have. Because if you want the church to grow, just start caring for people. It'll not only affect the person you're caring for, but it'll affect their family members.

When they look on and see us loving on somebody that has died and we do their funeral. And they say that church cares for its people. Are you with me?

This is the quietest ever remember? Here's one Another thing that I've tried to do, I mentioned it to my staff kind of off and on not as much as I should but evaluate and re evaluate. What do you mean by that? Well, every time we have a major event, I sat down and I look at that event and I say, what did we do? Right? And what did we do wrong? And what could we do better? How could we improve things? A sign in the parking lot is the user who left a restaurant it read like this.

You didn't have to be here, we have to be here. Thanks for coming.

And when our visitors come, they don't have to come. But I tried to thank him at the back door. I tried to race my way past people and get to the back door in time to greet visitors let them know, I'm just glad that you chose to come to our church. We wanted to make it to be a good experience.

And we evaluate we reevaluate.

How can we do things better? Now if that didn't matter to you, you can be at an average church quit worrying about a church growing it won't. Here's another thing. We try to as a church experience. We try to make it a celebration. David said in Psalm 122, verse one, he said, I was glad when they said it to me, let us go into the house of the Lord. He didn't get sorry about anyone said he was glad. It was celebration time. And we here at BNC we look for things to celebrate. On Sunday, our services is not about despondency, and discouraging news. We're trying to get people's attention on God and we want to celebrate his glory.

When we have baptisms when we do baby dedications, we celebrate that we're hoping right in the very near future to do a mortgage voting service. I want to want you to know it's going to be a celebration. Gonna be big time. I'd like for you to show up, I'm thinking about it.

And so what we do we want to look to celebrate. And look what we can celebrate things more I look for things to celebrate.

And here's another thing, develop people's spiritual gifts. Here in first Peter 410 has ever man have received the gift even so minister, the same one to another. Great preachers gonna build churches, great churches, build preachers and build people. Shepherds don't reproduce sheep, sheep, reproduce sheep. And I'm simply challenge you to help other people find their gift, and start serving. Now, when people are new to our church, one of the things I invite him to a membership class, and we try to cover every aspect. I tried to give him the history of this local church and the movement and, and then the President, and then we talk about our future.

Somewhere in all of that setting. I talk about service, and I talk about spiritual gifts. And what I want to do is get people in their gift zones.

Do you know that people within four minutes after arriving, are deciding if they're ever coming back again. So we want to, we want to make it so that they want to come back we want to, we want to get them involved. The I want people volunteering and serving because volunteers find friendships faster. When you get involved, and you're a part of it, you begin to meet other people. And you find like minded friends in the church, the fact of the matter, volunteers spiritually mature faster. You don't get maturity by hearing the Bible. You mature by doing what you've heard the Bible say by doing volunteer stick because they're more likely they get rooted in the church than people who have no skin in the game.

Get involved. Now I find that in pastoring people see us before they hear us they see us so we're constantly trying to improve the brand and and prove our look and when people come Rick's got the grass nicely molded and we try to have a fresh coat of paint on and we try to have the rooms looking nice restrooms looking clean, and we try to have the nursery looking right and people see you before they hear appearance really matters. Chick Fil A's say that they revamped their restaurants every seven years because they know that they have to keep current and I've been around churches that haven't revamped anything of their facilities for 40 years. You and I believe the church is important. More than chick fillet. Here's another prayer is the power source. Now in Matthew 21, people tell me that Jesus was upset over the money changers. And I'm sure that's true. But he goes on to say my house should be called a house, a prayer. I believe he was not only upset over what they were doing, he was over upset over what they were not doing. And they weren't praying as they should. Now, I want you to know that behind the scenes, there are prayer meetings going on prayer groups going on. I never walk out here but water on Sunday morning, I wear the carpet out in my office, pacing the room, say, Oh, God, please anoint me, please help me please use me. Please bring things to my mind to say and help me not to say anything I shouldn't say.

We believe in that prayer is our power source. Here's another thing that we do we promote what's happening. Do you know not promoting is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you're doing, but she doesn't. I see churches that don't have a clue what they're doing. They're never promoting anything. Now I think this is the greatest thing there is the church poet said who he who has a thing to sell and goes or whispers in a well is app is not as apt to get the dollars as he who climbs the trees in dollars.

I think well, we'll let folk know what's going on. And I think it's important to get a church on the map. And it comes by promoting what is happening 31 years now. I go into my office and I cut another radio tape 52 weeks a year for 31 years. So that the voice of the Nazarene broadcaster is going out of this local city until people know me when I'm walking on the streets. And they know there's a church on the south end of this city. And we were able to promote over that radio program. We have a sign out front, wet took a year to get that one up. I'll not tell you the headaches that went just to get a site that laid out there resting on the ground. Lot of disagreement over having a side pastoral probably one his name on it. My name was not on it for five years, somebody finally suck it up. And not by my request. But the sign out front is not just for information.

It's for invitation. We're inviting folk to come and feel free to walk through our doors.

I started doing friend Day weekend, we grew off a friend a weekend. I invited a guy by the name of David ring. Anybody ever heard of David ring? I think he had muscular dystrophy dysgraphia. I think that's what he dealt with. Well, very well known. And we invited him to come because it brought all of his friends in and it exposed our church that people had not a clue that even existed. We invited in Janet Pascoe, we invited in the callers were family, Ernie halls and signature sound and, and David Phelps and, and John Starnes.

And we wanted to introduce people to this ministry that had no idea that we existed. And I think we're all to be creative, whether it's through social media, or whatever, but promote what is happening in Brazil, Indiana. When I arrived, I'd never pastored I didn't I didn't have a clue. And I soon found out nobody's gonna do anything.

I thought the whole church would get excited. They weren't. So I went to the board and I said, Could we as a church join the Chamber of Commerce? They said, why would we want to do that? I said, I couldn't think of a reason. So I took 200 bucks in my own money. And I went down and I joined it individually as a pastor walked in, and you got to understand all I've ever done, had been an evangelist.

I've never been to a parent teachers meeting at schools. I had not a clue how to town operated. I'd never I'd never been to a coladas club meeting or any kind of a VDI. I didn't even know how the rest of the world live. I'd never been to a chamber of commerce walked in and here's all these business people and here's a preacher showed up. And the President of the thing stuck his hand out and said my name Steve Hackett. I couldn't hardly remember what my name was. But Sunday morning, I looked over and right on my right was Steve unseat. I was kind of like he was when I showed up. What's he doing here?

So I called him the next morning and I said, Could we have lunch and we met for lunch. I said, Steve, why did you come? He said that we've never had a preacher show up at chamber. You're the first that's ever come. Said I went home and told my wives that I like that guy. He's the only one that did so don't get excited. He said, He's Nazarene, honey. She said, Okay. I said, Do you know anything about Nazarene she said, My daddy was a Nazarene preacher. My daddy built a church up to over 400 It was the largest church on our district and then dad ran off of the organist. My brother and I were headed off to Olivet Nazarene University to study for the ministry. And suddenly we had no place to live mama couldn't stay in the parsonage.

It didn't belong to us. We had to look for a house for mom to live mom had no income. So we couldn't go to college. We had to go get jobs, so mothered have food on the table. And he said, I became bitter against the Church of the Nazarene for what they've done to my family. And I hated the church. And I've run from the call of God to preach and throws my brother. He said, I told my wife, I said, I like that little Nazarene, preacher.

And honey, it just dawned on me.

I don't know why I blamed that as a reason was my dad that ran off of the organist who wasn't the Nazarene church. And he said, I'm gonna get back into church. And I'm gonna find God again. You can't build a church, if you don't get out and get among people from old what's happening is what I'm trying to say and not doing very well with it. And you're not backing me much either. Spatial days, we've used baby dedications, trying to make them a big celebration.

We've done baptisms, and we, there have been times that I, I would create these invitations, and you had to pass out so many and get so many friends to come in here to be baptized. Well, that'll put the pressure on him.

I said, if you want your friends to see that you're following Christ, and since we don't do it in a river, and we hide it, the baptistry in the church, invite all of your Ramsay friends to come and watch and well, we've had some big times doing that.

We've done Passion of the Christ with the show Walters and totally Christmas and, and lest we forget and, and big days, most of the time, it went crossways was they were not on board with it. It was against some of their comfort zones, I suppose. Now I've wondered how many we could have been running right now if everybody had gotten on board. And I wondered how many could we have kept out of hell. It wasn't just realized we're a team trying to reach the last. You say, Well, Pastor, they're just gimmicks or whatever floats your boat. But I'll guarantee you one thing when they got here, they got the gospel. They got the gospel.

Here's another thing I pushed for. Its excellence. Excellence.

Now I got to be careful. I'd like to give you some illustrations, but we're a live stream. And there's podcasts and there's people that will watch and I if I tell some stories, get some phone calls. But when it comes to this platform, I want the best on the platform.

And ever since I pastored I never let people get up the look that look for a songbook and to where's my glasses is anybody got a request? Hey, when you get up here, you better be ready because we expect excellence.

Excellence in Hollywood has excellent why in the world shouldn't God's people run his kingdom with excellence? Then I'll give you a last one. This is a tough one work, work work.

Building a church is not easy.

Not cannot tell you the hardships that we have dealt with in the 31 years that I've been here. Nobody wants to hear war stories. The nights that I laid awake and couldn't sleep and the battles that we fought mentally. Decisions for Christ are always hard. There's always ramifications. Nehemiah when he built a wall I don't know if you read the story. When he gathered his workers said you need two instruments. You build a wall you got to have a trial but you better have a sword on the other hand to defend yourself. And so with one hand they had a sword with the other hand, they had a trial and that's the way they've and I've noticed and building the kingdom if you're in ministry and leadership, there's always going to be opposition you better have a sword. But you better not lay down the trial or you'll not build the kingdom. We have a lot of volunteers who work their jobs full time and then they come. It's unbelievable. They'll spend one to two evenings a week practicing in the music department. They teach classes.

We have those aware monitors and they're guarding us every Sunday, you might see a wall or going down their shirt collar.

But they are here trying to guard the pastor and guard you from some kind of an intrusion.

We have them that run sound and run the overheads and run cameras for the television and for the live stream. We have those that are greeters. We have others that ma'am, the doors and how important that is. You may not know but we have a band that comes in every Monday night.

They're not from our church. And they support our preacher that we have that runs the mission transformation service. We used to call it Celebrate Recovery, it's now called Mission transformation. There's at least five or six that come in. And they used to play in hockey Tonks. And they bring their guitars and, and the bass and the drums and keyboards and sing their hearts out. And people with drug addictions and habits and hang ups and all kinds of problems come in. And they come in and show up Monday after Monday after Monday, my heart goes out to Zig Ziglar said there's no traffic jam on the extra mile. I'm talking about people that through the years have gone the extra mile. When you look around this church, it's not here by accident.

There. It's here because of people who've gone the extra mile giving extra money give extra time. And I've given my life for this thing. And there's others that have done the same.

And God I believe is saying to us, it's time. The whole congregation really knows what you're doing. And to take the church to the next level. Not the all white headed pastor, and not just the staff. And not just the board leadership. But all of us begin to step this thing up to the next level. God has given us all kinds of people. I don't know if you remember, but just a few years ago, I gave a State of the Union address to the church.

And I told you that we needed five families that understood where we stand on holiness that can actually teach it God has given us that I told him we needed so many new families and so many more dollars to to run the operation. And goddess fulfill every last bit of that.

We have a gal that works back here in the nursery. Her mom and dad has been missionaries.

They've just now retired off the field. They'll spend one more year traveling doing deputation work, and then there'll be here.

She's back there Manning things.

We've got all kinds of people that God has given us. And with this kind of responsibility, it's time to see the big page, and to become a worshiper and get so united, and let's promote the kingdom of God. And let's compel him to come so that his house can be filled. And one day, and it may be soon outspan before the King of kings, and I'm going to give an account.

And I'm not going to say God, I hung my leg over the edge of the arm chair and I had a cup of coffee in the other hand and we ran 25 And, and that 25 was happy they liked me because I didn't disturb them. I never sold any vision and I never really reached anybody but I was faithful. And God will say but were you fruitful. And I'm gonna say God, I didn't hang my leg over the chair and I wasn't guzzling coffee without a vision. I tried to reach people for you in the kingdom. And that's why we were on the radio.

That's why we reached out through television. That's why we got involved in livestream.

That's why we did the calls in the hospitals. That's why we set up extra nice trying to work with people. We're doing it one by one. We save them one by one.

family by family. Would you join me in the dream? Would you have the vision as God pours out His Spirit? Let's not miss it.

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene visitors every Sunday at 9am with B and C's pastor Ray In this file for more information regarding B and C visit Bucyrus nazarene.org