5. The Church, Missions, and Hollywood

In the previous chapters I touched on a few areas where things seem quite complex and messy. I am sure you don’t want to read much more along those lines, but allow me to let you in on the many areas I have been reading and talking to people about for half a century or so. I believe understanding this will help us all become more grace awakened, big hearted, and forgiving. I believe you will have greater wisdom and discernment to handle tough situations—especially if you are a leader.

Church Governance: I never could have believed as a young Christian how many different ways there are to lead a church and how the Lord seems to bless so many different methods. Often those who have a particular method believe in it very strongly and if you are among those I am not asking you to change, but I would encourage you to maybe be a bit less dogmatic that your way of doing it is the only way. Even changing our vernacular a bit to something like “one of the ways” would be so much more sensible than saying “this is the only way.”

We now have team-led churches (sometimes called elder-led) that go back to the Brethren Movement, which was such a dynamic movement in its day and in some cases still is today. Dale Rhoton, who went to Mexico on that very first trip and who I met at Maryville College, became part of that movement and wrote a booklet that this was the New Testament way. I was only beginning to understand this unique movement, having first worshiped among this group in Mexico City. William MacDonald, who at that time was president of Emmaus Bible College in Chicago, was becoming a friend and supporter. His book True Discipleship became a great influence in our movement. There were many factors leading me to be baptized by immersion by Dale at Bethany Chapel in Wheaton. However, at that stage in my life I was already very interdenominational as Moody Bible Institute helped me down that road.

And then I married a Baptist! Dale and a few others were commended from their assembly to work with OM, and we considered that a great answer to prayer. Little did we know that some years later I would end up starting the work in the UK where the Brethren Movement was born and it is still going strong. Historically, a number of our leaders, including our first UK director, Keith Beckwith, and later Peter Maiden, who became my associate director and then successor, were linked with them. The Brethren Movement has had many splits; almost every individual assembly has had one, but God keeps working and it is still a relatively healthy global movement. Some now have pastors who try to lead while still being a team player. Others are horrified by the idea of having a pastor and this has caused more splits. Let’s be honest, in God’s mysterious way of working, splits and division are one of the ways the church grows. That is not to excuse any sin or misbehavior. As always, the concept of God working in the midst of the mess stares us in the face.

There is not space to go into all the different ways that churches are led. To the surprise of many of us, our work in India, totally under the leadership of Indians, chose to go down a road that seems to combine the Brethren, Baptists, Methodists, and the Anglicans with a charismatic streak. The Good Shepherd Churches are one of the greatest fruits of our entire history, but we had to let them find their own way, and my change of view on how our God works has helped me understand it more than I can express. You can be sure I am a raving fan and strong supporter of what’s going on, but that does not mean I agree with it all or even understand it all. Whenever there are large numbers coming to Christ at once, it is not just a mess but a hyper-mega mess. That’s why we should pray and support more than ever that great work and other similar works. Through this rapid growth we have learned that mistakes cost us. We also learned more about how the devil and his helpers can use gossip to try to destroy a work. We must all be more positive about the many ways that God works in such a variety of churches with different styles of leadership.

Hollywood and Christian Movies: I loved good films and some bad ones as a young kid, so it was quite a shock as a young believer to be told that films and the cinema are all from the devil. While it is no longer the case, back in those days at Moody I had to sign a paper saying that I would not go to films. I was so strong for Jesus and world missions that in a sense I did not want to take any chances and on many issues I went along with the order of the day. Only later did I realize a lot of it was legalism and I was soon in its clutches. One thing is for sure, we have hundreds of years proving that God can work in the midst of a legalistic environment. But I believe the Bible teaches there is a better way. This is linked with culture and the amazing way God seems to be able to break into almost any cultural situation. When a Texan gets saved, he stays a Texan. That may irritate our Christian folks from Boston, but it’s no big deal with the living God. A lot of misunderstanding between states, nations, and cities could be resolved if we were more God-centered and understood His amazing ways better.

Our movement ran parallel with the Christian Film Movement under the leadership of people like Ken Anderson and many others. Even in 1963 we had projectors in many of our trucks as we crisscrossed Europe reaching millions with the Word of God. We have been using video in a major way ever since. I soon discovered that almost all those films were criticized especially by people in the film world. Of course most were low budget and so there were great limitations. History and heaven will show how multitudes came to know Jesus through these films. Does this not show us how God’s thinking is so different from ours? We long for great things and better films of course, but meanwhile God is using what we would reject to bring people to Himself. Are we not way more judgmental and narrow-minded than the living God?

Church Buildings: Some of the largest new church movements of our day also still have, to me, an unhealthy infatuation with extravagant buildings. The money that is poured into church buildings, while people are dying of hunger and living in poverty all around us, is something that many cannot understand. This has been a dividing line in the Christian world for hundreds of years—it is not new. Whole movements were born partly reacting to it like the Salvation Army and the Methodists. These movements and many others spread their faith around the world and so even in modern day India and Pakistan we have huge buildings often tied up in legal cases, generally run-down and looking very ugly.

Yes, be careful if you’re going to say that God is not working among the people in some of the buildings today. It’s a problem for me, but I don’t really think it’s a big deal with God. Some people get really upset if the old buildings are sold and become something else—especially a mosque. I personally think God is far more concerned about the people, including Muslims, than He is about the old building. Why are we not loving and reaching out to our Muslim neighbors with the gospel? Some of the churches that have been closed have been spiritually dead for years, turning away from the truth of Scripture decades ago, so why are we so worried? Even in places like the UK we have thousands of new churches and all kinds of Christian groups and surely that is more about what is on the heart of God today. There is a place for church buildings and I am sure all kinds of other buildings, but God will lead different people in different ways. I often find it upsetting but I don’t think it’s such a big deal with God.