Transcription
For, uh, being there, it's a it's a delight. We have a special day today. It's uh, we're delighted to have our executive presbyters on campus.
For those of you who may be new to our work family here, our executive presbyters are like our board of directors. They're not only spiritual elders, but they're the board of directors for the general counsel. We meet about five times a year and conduct business and pray over missional critical issues and deal with credentialing things. And so I'd like to ask the members of the executive Presbytery, would you stand? And would you let our campus family welcome you back to a chapel service? Absolutely.
In addition to our executive Presbytery, we have started something where we've invited some young leaders from around the fellowship to come and just audit the executive presbytery, kind of look under the hood—what is it that this team does, the decisions they make? These are life-giving pastors from across our fellowship, and uh, we're honored today to have Ryan, to have Derek, to have Mel, to have Jason. Where's Brett? Brenton Fessler? Where's Brenton? Right here? Right here. Right there, over there. Would you auditors please stand? I want uh this campus family to welcome you guys. Yeah, so hey, stay standing, guys, stay standing. So I want this campus—this is our market right here, this is our market—they are pastoring in local churches, and this is who we are serving and resourcing. And so we just want to say thank you for what you do. Thank you week after week for advancing the kingdom of God, and we want to come around you both in prayer and resource to help you do your job effectively. Come on, one more time, can we express our appreciation? Yeah, so cool.
So just before I bring a uh kind of a devotional thought this morning, I'm going to ask Josh Wellborn to come. One of our values is to create a strong pipeline of young people who sense a call of God on their life to ministry. We want to we want to mine early, early on, a late elementary, junior high age, and go after students who feel a sense of God's call on their life and and just begin to cultivate that. Well, last week we had our first ever Called Camp. We invited students from around the nation to come. Some of you probably saw them on campus; they were taking tours, they were they were hanging out, and it was an opportunity for our leadership team just to invest four days into the Next Generation. We have this value that we don't want to write values and then never live them out, so I don't want to say we're investing in the next generation without strategically doing it, and we had an incredible, successful event, and I want you to just get a little testimony of what happened, Joshua. Thank you, Doug.
Hey, so you should know that the inception of this thing was so God-breathed that it was during quarantine that one of our members of the National Youth Department, uh, John Zick, said, "Hey, can I can I write a book from home?" Like, "Yeah, yes," uh, it's for students that are called into ministry. And then in the fall, Pastor Choco says, "Josh, have you ever thought about doing a Called Camp?" I'm like, "Pastor Choco, did you talk to John?" No, so it's just one of those moments where God is speaking to multiple people; he's saying the same word, and so you get that moment of confirmation. We invited we invited our superintendents and our district youth directors to send up to five candidates from each district or network, and they were the ones who got to come to Called Camp last week. We had 40 students come; we had about 20 leaders call. We had district youth directors, youth pastors, we had Assemblies of God U.S. missionaries call and say, "Hey, we want to come be part of this," so we had about 60 people, and it was amazing. And Doug, I made a whole list of people that were involved, and I have a feeling you don't want me to read all that, but let me just say Light for the Lost paid for each of those kids to have a book. Nixa Assembly invested; they gave us a study, an ELT Study Bible, about a 70-dollar value for each student. There, Speed the Light showered them with gifts; Women's Ministries showed up and gave gifts; Evangel gave gifts, and all week, and I wondered if I could just read a few testimonies from some of these students, and then one of them—I I put out the all call—we created a virtual group for all the students that were at camp last week, and I put out an all call last night when Doug said, "Hey, do a window"—I put out an all call; I said, "Hey, anybody want to shoot a selfie video, a testimony?" And one student did, and he did a great job. We'll play that in just a moment, but let me just read some of these testimonies that they posted in our group me just over the weekend, and and you'll notice a theme. My absolute favorite was the worship and altar time; the presence of God was there so richly, it was just incredible. "I experienced Him like I have never before, like I never have before." A close second, though, was meeting everyone. "I loved getting to know everyone, and know the relationships will continue throughout the years." One of our DYDs said, "As a leader, I loved watching all the students going after God in every service," and if you've ever served at a youth camp, you'll appreciate this next statement from our DYD: "I didn't have to keep an eye on those students in the back because there were none; they were all in the altar, and I could join in with everyone else." "My favorite part was worship, and I never felt so close to God before. That that really helped me. I'm always concerned what people think of me, but just focusing on God was amazing. I also loved just connecting with everyone. I loved staying up late in our team time talking about what God was calling us to do in ministry." Next one: "Meeting people within the AG. I have very few friends who are called to ministry, and it was nice to make those close connections." I could go on, but the themes were the presence of God and the relational connection. And can I just tell you, as a product of the Assemblies of God, my connection with God at camp and conventions is one of the things that kept me here. The other thing—when I say here, I mean walking the path towards Jesus—the other thing that kept me here was the connections that I made in this fellowship, the Assemblies of God. We want it to be a family, so we're raising up leaders, so superintendents that are that either sent students or saying, "You're going to get on board in the future." Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, and so again, this is an invite thing only, and if we could do just play that testimony, or did you want to ask? I don't. Okay, thanks. Yeah, play that uh testimony, and I'll be done. Thank you so much, everybody.
Hi, my name is Ivan Lutzenheiser, and firstly, I'd like to say I wish I had more time to talk about Called Camp, but I'll do my best to try to keep it short. My favorite thing was having leaders from all over take time out of their day to sit down and talk to me and give me advice and answer questions. Like, that was amazing. Hearing perspectives that weren't just from my town, or just from my state, seeing how ministry works all over was super enriching and led to a lot of spiritual growth, as a lot as well as personal growth, and I don't think one person walked away from Called Camp not having that growth and and seen the Lord in a new light and having their calls solidified and feeling confident. Please continue this; it was so good. Thank you.
Cool. We do plan to keep this going as an annual event, and I'm committed to not being out-recruited by Microsoft. I do not want Microsoft to cherry-pick the best in our tribe, and I want to get them for the cause of the Kingdom, so amen. Thanks.
Well, I want to say thanks to our campus family, especially in front of the executive presbyters, for both for your actions and your attitude during these last 18 months. From practical measures to spiritual matters, this employee family performed with excellence, outstanding in tenacity, and I want to thank you so very, very much. And it's with that thought in mind, as restrictions are being lifted and we're kind of coming back into some sort of a routine, whatever that looks like, I wanted to talk a little bit this morning about my favorite person in the Bible: the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit is a person; he's not an "it"; he's not a subject to be debated; he's not a ghost to be feared; he's the third member of the Godhead, and our relationship with him is vital for Christian living, ministry effectiveness, and job satisfaction. We just celebrated uh Pentecost Sunday a couple weeks ago, and you know, I doubt I doubt if the early church, I doubt of the 120 that were in the upper room could have ever fathomed what the Holy Spirit would do in just one century, in one in in in in in in in in our lifetime. It's mind-blowing. Did you know that Pentecostals today account for one out of every four Christians in the world? Pentecostals number 670 million worldwide. So can I just lean into this thought? When we celebrate the Holy Spirit, when we talk about Pentecost, it is not out of denominational loyalty; it's out of recognizing what God is doing around the world, and we embrace that as a part of our DNA, so part of our identity. You all know that the day of Pentecost sort of set a unique uh and special platform for the person of the Holy Spirit to be introduced. In fact, Luke does a really great job in the book of Acts telling us about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Just as a refresher, you know that the Holy Spirit was for every nation—that we're staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation—and I would just say from the day of Pentecost until now, the Holy Spirit is for every nation; it's also for every generation. This promise is not just for you, but for you and your children; it's for everyone our Lord God will choose, no matter where they live. So the promise of the Holy Spirit was for every generation, every nation, every generation. It was also designed for every person, every gender, every social and economic class. In fact, Jesus said, "Let everyone who is thirsty, let anyone who is thirsty come unto me and drink." The Holy Spirit is not just for a select few or a chosen minority among Christians. In fact, the writer Luke says in Acts 2:17, "In the last days, God says, 'I'll pour out my spirit,' watch this, 'on all people.'" Your sons and your daughters will prophesy; young men will see visions; your old men will dream dreams. Pentecost, man, it's every generation, every nation, every person, and it's for every situation. Pentecost is for every situation; in other words, in persecution times, in times of spiritual flourishing, in times of economic growth, in times of depression, the Holy Spirit and Pentecost is important; pre-pandemic, mid-pandemic, post-pandemic, the work of the Holy Spirit is important in the life of the church and in the life of ministers, for every situation. And so I just want to remind you that the person of the Holy Spirit, he's not an idle spectator of the Trinity; he lives in us; he's involved in the redemptive work in our lives, and he's involved in the redemptive work of the church. So I want to lean in because we unapologetically are a spirit-empowered Pentecostal fellowship. Our organization believes in this third person of the Trinity. So when you think about what is it that the Holy Spirit does, let me offer a couple suggestions. First of all, the Holy Spirit makes known to us the presence of Jesus. It's part of the work of the Holy Spirit to make known to us the presence of Jesus. He is not an independent contractor of the Trinity; he doesn't just do his own thing; all of his work is rooted in making Jesus and his presence known to us. In fact, Jesus said in John 15, "I'll send you the Spirit who comes from the Father and shows you what is true." Watch this: "The Spirit will help you and tell you about me." Look, how many of you think this culture could know could could stand using a little bit more knowledge about Jesus? So if you want to get to know more about Jesus, get to know the Holy Spirit better. You want to get to know more about the presence of Jesus in your life and in your ministry, and tangent boys, lean into the Holy Spirit. You see, the presence of Jesus can have a huge, huge impact on your life, on your mind, on your emotions. I believe if we only knew the presence of Jesus as it was expressed in Scripture, that it would transform the way we live our Christian lives, and it would certainly transform how we treat other people. This means that the presence of Jesus is more than theoretical; it's living; it's active; it enriches; it expands; and increases our faith. And I can tell you personally, the presence of Jesus can change your perspective from being negative to positive. The presence of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, can change your perspective from going to doubt to faith, and I experienced this just about eight weeks ago. District Council season was kicking back up, and I had one of those busy runs where I was going to start out being in a church on Saturday night and Sunday and go immediately to a district that was voting on a new district superintendent and have ministry there, but it had been a particularly trying, trying week—one of those weeks, just just tough, just the weight of church issues, the weight of some legal issues, the weight of certain interviews not going the way that I thought they would go—and I was driving to the airport, and I just was not in the right frame of mind. I said, "Lord, this is this is crazy; this is a lot of just stuff, and I want to win people to Jesus and build the church; I don't want to have to uh fight through legal stuff and deal with people's problems." And so I flipped on the radio, and it was kind of set to the Message XM 63, heard this song—I've sung this song, but kind of in the background—uh, the song from Elevation Worship, "Raise a Hallelujah," was playing. You know, "In the presence of my enemies, raise a Hallelujah," you know, "In the middle of the mystery, I'm gonna sing; in the middle of the storm," and I'm driving, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, "Doug Clay, you work for Jesus; Jesus doesn't work for you, and he's not restricted by your disappointments. Now you need to just sing a little louder." So I did. I start—I'll sing a little louder—sing a little louder—sing a little louder—and I was just cranking it out, and by the time I got to the airport, my perspective went from doubt to confidence; my emotions went from, "Man, this is crazy," to, "Come on, let's have a great weekend of ministry." I'm telling you, if you will let Him, the person of the Holy Spirit can make known to you the presence of Jesus and can keep you from having a perspective that's filled with fear and doubt to one that's like, "All right, God's got this," but sometimes you just have to sing a little louder. Okay.
Second thing the Holy Spirit can do for us, if we'll let Him, is He can make us more like Jesus. He can make us more like Jesus. Here's what I've discovered: I can't conform to the image of Jesus with sheer willpower. I've tried it; sheer willpower does not let you conform to the image of Jesus; you need the Holy Spirit. That's probably what Paul meant when he said in Galatians chapter 5, "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh; for the flesh desires what's contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what's contrary to the flesh; they're in conflict with each other, so that you're not to do whatever you want." Watch this: "But if you are led by the Spirit, then you're not under the law; you're not under bondage; you're not under discouragement." Come on, we need more Christians in culture that look like Jesus instead of their favorite news anchor. We need more ministers that look like Jesus instead of their favorite pastor that they download free content with. We need more churches to look like the body of Christ than just civic clubs that are holding political debates. Paul said in Romans 8, "God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son." You've been chosen to become like Jesus, and you're not going to become like Jesus with sheer willpower; you're going to need the person of the Holy Spirit that can help you do that. Listen, the Spirit makes us like Christ; He takes the copy of Christ's life in the Spirit, and then He works those same affections, those same desires in us so that we become truly Christ-like. You can tell someone's becoming Christ-like when they love Scripture like Jesus loves Scripture. Jesus never separated Himself from His teachings uh from the teachings of Scripture; He fought off temptation with Scripture; He used Scripture more than opinions or emotions. Think about it. So we become like Jesus when we love Scripture like Jesus; we become like Jesus when we value repentance like Jesus valued repentance. Think about it: Mark chapter one, "Repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand." There is power that comes through pure repentance, and repentance is a whole lot different than confession. Confession makes your conscience feel better, but it's repentance that creates real change in your life, and that's why, as a fellowship, we believe in the power of repentance. That First John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins." And in fact, that's part of the work of the Holy Spirit, because John said—Jesus said in John—that the Holy Spirit's job is to convict us in regards to sin and righteousness. So if we lean into the Holy Spirit, He'll help us practice repentance to become more like Jesus. I would also submit to you that we become more like Jesus when we love lost people like Jesus loved lost people. Somewhere along the line, the last few years, we've allowed lost people to be our enemy. Lost people are not our enemy; people who are different than us religiously, in their views on sexual orientation and their political affiliation, they are not our enemy; they bear the image of Jesus in their lives, and they have the ability to say yes to the Gospel. So I want to look beyond labels when it comes to redemption, when it comes to work, when it comes to the Gospel, and love the lost like Jesus loved the lost. It's part of the work of the Holy Spirit in our life; He makes us like Christ.
You know, I'd get this one in here: The Holy Spirit helps us understand the Bible better. Now, that's just not because it's a real passion of mine, biblical literacy, but think about it in this way: It was the Holy Spirit that inspired the writing of Scripture. Remember, Peter wrote this: "Above all, you must understand," watch this, "no prophecy of Scripture came about by the Prophet's own interpretation of things; for prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So the Holy Spirit was involved in the inspiration of writing Scripture, and the Holy Spirit is involved in helping us understand the Bible better. Jesus said in John 16:13, "The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into full truth." I'd always like it when people do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Say "full truth" with me, would you? Say that. All right. Say it again. Gail's not here, so I don't—I can get away with that; she can't stand that. Repeat after me, or take somebody's hand. Well, she's not here, and so I can say it. "The Spirit doesn't speak on His own," watch this, "He'll tell you only what He has heard from me, and He'll let you know what's going to happen." Too many people, even in the body of Christ, are operating on partial truth, and it's dividing the country, and it's dividing the church. Full truth is powerful; it brings life. Partial truth is destructive; it brings confusion. We can't let truth be treated like a fairy tale, and we believe that truth is found in Scripture, and the Holy Spirit is going to help us train up the Next Generation to have a biblical worldview. So if you want to know the ways of God, get into the Word of God. If you want to know how to respond to a moral revolution that's taking place right in front of our eyes, then stick to Scripture, because God's word, God's word brings great clarity on all moral issues in life. And so, honestly, it's not a cop-out to default to Scripture and responding to cultural issues. I don't have to co-opt my answers to a political party; I can co-opt my answers to say, "Well, this is what God's Word says; this is what God's Word says." The Holy Spirit will help us do, help us understand the Bible better.
Fourthly, and this one is for all of us: Holy Spirit will guide you to the right job or divine assignment. You see, your life and your work, they're not a random hodgepodge of coincidence or lucky breaks or good-looking resumes. God, through the Holy Spirit, is directing your steps and affirming His divine assignment to you. In other words, it's the Holy Spirit that will guide you into the work that He has called you to do. I believe that biblically—think about it—it was the Holy Spirit that set Barnabas and Saul apart for the work that He called them to; it was the Holy Spirit that led Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch to help him understand the Scriptures; it was the Holy Spirit that prohibited Paul from entering into specific regions. So, quite frankly, the Holy Spirit's work in job placement is better than any head-hunting company; it's better than any HR department. He will direct your steps, and that's why I go back to what I said: He's the third member of the Godhead, and our relationship with Him is vital for ministry effectiveness and job satisfaction. Who we are in this building, who we are as Pentecostals, is not just a matter of a shared label, a common style of worship, or agreed-upon doctrine; it's found in having a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, who—our relationship with Him is vital for growth in ministry. So you know what? As the fellowship, as we seek to see a healthy church in every community and grow to 15,000 churches, we need the Holy Spirit. As we intentionally seek to recruit and equip the next generation of leaders, we're going to need the help of the Holy Spirit. To have 40,000 credentialed ministers, as we seek to grow in our ethnic diversity and become a fellowship that has no ethnic majority, we're going to need the help of the Holy Spirit. So it's not just about shared label or common worship expressions, and I don't even want to just be known as the evangelicals that do tongues; I want to be known as the living body of Christ that leans into the part of the Trinity that Jesus said, "Look, I'm going to leave Him with you so you can have ministry effectiveness," because I believe that the Holy Spirit is for every nation, every generation, every person, and every situation—that includes post-pandemic. Amen. Colleen, why don't you come back? Will you please?
So as we kind of just this first chapel setting, as we come back, how are we going to do this? I know we're going to figure it out; we'll probably do one a month till the fall, then we'll look at it; we might kind of get back to what we did before—some leadership training, an inspirational chapel, some small groups within your department—but um, I just wanted to one more time remind us of our ethos, remind us of our identity. I could go on and on; you, you two, you could too. I could talk about how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, guides for us, gives special gifts, imparts love, and gives hope and creates anointing, but today, first chapel back, I just wanted to remind us to lean into the person of the Holy Spirit. I get it; we don't always comprehend the Holy Spirit; He doesn't always get the appropriate amount of time or attention, and think about it: We get God the Father, and everybody's got a father; we get God the
Son, everybody. God has a son. The word became flesh, dwelt among us. We sometimes get a little mystical when it comes to the Holy Spirit. You want to be too hard on ourselves. That happened to the church in Ephesus, Acts 19. Paul was journeying through the region, and he came upon some new Believers, and he said, "Hey, if you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" And he said, "We haven't even heard that there's a Holy Spirit." He said, "Okay, let me tell you about it."
[Music] But if He is the one in the Trinity that comes into our life when we get saved, and that Jesus said, "Hey, if I go to the Father, I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit to give you ministry effectiveness," then I don't want to miss out on taking full advantage of the third member of the Trinity who can help us achieve some missional goals until the Lord comes back. So you know the challenges are going to continue to face us, even restrictions being lifted; we're gonna we're gonna have to be sensitive, but and we we might have to pivot; we might have to take two steps forward, one step back. I get all that, but I also know I don't have to face that just with human understanding and ingenuity. We have the person of the Holy Spirit that can help us resource our churches and our pastors to see a healthy church in every community. Amen.
So hey, why don't you do so? Would you stand together with me? And um, I get it; you come from various backgrounds, but what I'm asking you to do is biblical. Raising hands is biblical, so I'm just going to simply ask you to raise both hands together all over this place, and I want to pray that the Holy Spirit would come and give us greatest give us the greatest days of ministry effectiveness than we've ever had before; that we'd see the greatest number of churches planted; we'd see the greatest number of students come to faith in Christ; we'd see pockets of of spiritual renewal take place in churches and in in Arizona and Minnesota and New Mexico, right here in Missouri; that that those of us who are involved in the church, teaching a Sunday school class, leading a life group, on a hospitality team, maybe we're being nudged to go be a part of a church planning team. All I'm asking is that we, as the body of Christ, we as the employees of the national office, would lean into the Holy Spirit and take full advantage of His empowerment, of His of Him being a catalyst for our spiritual uh formation, of Him solidifying that we are in the right place at the right time.
So, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would invade this campus. We pray that some of our best resources would be developed, that some of our best articles, that some of our best equipping, that some of our best days of ministry effectiveness, that some of our best overseas church plantings would take place, that on U.S. mission soil, the greatest harvest of Chi Alpha workers and and Teen Challenge directors and intercultural ministers would just spring up all over the place, because we're not satisfied with just leading an institution; we want to lead into the Holy Spirit to lead culture to a spiritual renewal that I believe You have for us in this country. So thank you, thank you, thank you, God, that You privilege us, You privileged us by working in this environment. So I pray Your blessing on every department, on every on every worker that's here, on every employee, our night shift employee. I pray that Your kingdom would come and Your purposes would be accomplished as we seek to really cultivate a relationship with You, Holy Spirit. Thank you. Give us a great great day today, I pray, in the strong name of Jesus. Amen and amen. May God bless you. Make it a great day.