* How to Study the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 2009), p. 76. (continued)
The Early Ministry at Grace Community Church 41
Word, and who will help his people develop and use their spiritual gifts, will enjoy the same results.'
He would not speak in that way in later years when he saw more clearly how providential circumstances, in which he played no part, had prepared the way. The Vietnam War had brought widespread disillusion; new Bible translations were prompting new interest in Scripture; and a hippy culture was being widely touched by 'the Jesus Movement'. It was a time when numbers, both young and old, were looking for a new direction. His mature verdict was: 'We were dropped into the right place at the right time; we caught the wave of those events.' 'I must ascribe our church's numerical and spiritual growth to the will of our sovereign God.'
Ventura Fwy,
6. Map showing local Freeways and location of
Grace Community Church.
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Threatening Reversals ks MacArthur has described the characteristic of his early years at Grace Church as 'a time of discovery and establishing the truth'. It was also a period of remarkable growth, in which, for a time, the congregation seemed to double every year. As already noted, in 1972 the original chapel had to be replaced by another, capable of holding up to one thousand.
This building was, in turn, superseded in 1977 by the present worship centre with a capacity of around 3,000. Even that accommodation was not enough for the numbers attending and two morning services were still necessary. At the evening service the auditorium was again commonly filled. It was well that the ground owned by the church was large, for it meant the new buildings were additional to the old that were retained for other purposes. In this way the one site gradually came to house a whole series of buildings.
The tape ministry, begun spontaneously by Vern Lummus in his spare time in 1969, reflected the same growth. From an annual figure of 5,000 tapes produced in 1970, the figure rose to 37,000 in 1973, by which time six men (in a voluntary capacity) were needed to keep it running under the name 'Word of Grace'. The annual figure was over 110,000 in 1976.
The church growth would surely not have happened if the 'pastor-teacher' had not made the local church his priority.
Even so, it was impossible for him to avoid other demands on his time. There were invitations to speak not only from other churches, but from a whole range of sources, such as day schools, Bible Colleges, police wives, fire brigade functions, ministers' retreats, missions to the Jews, and Bible and prophetic conferences. While such outside engagements in the early years were in his home state, by the later 1970s there were growing calls from places as far away as Chicago (the Moody Bible Institute), Miami and Texas. Counsel from his elders on such multiplied commitments was forthcoming, as a letter the preacher wrote to the Secretary of the American Board of Missions to the Jews, on January 11, 1978, indicates: I have recently been instructed by the elders and my doctor to change my schedule for this year. This has necessitated my changing several things, including about five speaking conferences. There are some I am bound to and cannot get out of, but aside from these I have cancelled all until summer.
The elders have directed me to concentrate here and to go on a missions trip with the staff to Brazil just two weeks prior to your conference.
The Brazil meetings in Sao Paulo went ahead in the weeks of April 17-28, 1978, with his main addresses on 'The Priorities of the Ministry', and 'The Characteristics of an Effective Church'. It was the response that followed this visit which helped the leaders of Grace Community Church to recognize how the ministry in their midst could have an international aspect.
Threatening Reversals
Another demand on MacArthur's time also developed in the 1970s, and it took a high place in his agenda. In 1972 there were nine young men in the congregation conscious of the call of God to become preachers. John would meet frequently with them for prayer and fellowship, and his personal prayer was that their number would be greatly multiplied. The formal theological training of these men, and of others who joined them, was conducted at Talbot Theological Seminary, with which John retained his relationship. In 1977 the Seminary awarded him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Originally the students for the ministry at Grace Community Church had a round trip of eighty miles daily, in a church-owned Dodge van, to the Seminary at La Mirada.
How this arrangement changed as the number of students from Grace multiplied was reported in a news item in Christianity Today (Feb. 10, 1978), under the heading, "Seminary Goes to Church': 'More than 6,000 people attend Grace Community
Church in Panorama City, California, and ninety to one hundred people in this relatively young congregation are seminary students.' It went on to explain that, as increasing numbers of these students were travelling back and forth to Talbot Seminary, it had been agreed that an extension campus of Talbot should be established at Grace Church. 'Instead of taking young people out of the church for three or four years of seminary, Grace has moved this seminary campus in-house to give its young people on-the-job training.'
Additional faculty and staff were now employed to make the Talbot extension in Sun Valley possible, and the regular input and oversight from MacArthur continued. A magazine of the Talbot Seminary students, The Tiger Tale, dated November 1, 1979, had for its leader, 'MacArthur's Love for Pulpit—and for Talbot Students'. The article began: The speaker: Dr John MacArthur. The day: a Monday off.
The audience: seventeen in number—considerably smaller than the thousands who hear him preach every Sunday. But the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church believes the opportunity is well worth his time. His listeners are Talbot students who attend his weekly expository preaching class at the Seminary's Valley Extension Center. wie
It is certain that a spiritual advance never occurs without opposition. One surmises from the dedication in MacArthur's first publication that all was not smooth in his early years at Grace. His first publication, a 33-page booklet entitled, Chrzstians and Demons (1973), carried the words, "To my beloved fellow elders at Grace, whose strength and faith has already seen us victoriously through many battles.' In at least one incident in the church there was a forceful reminder of the real enemy to spiritual advance. The course of a service was interrupted one evening by a girl seemingly under demonic influence. She kicked and screamed with a voice that was not her own. It left
MacArthur conscious that 'the battle is not against men'.
In the year 1979 varied forms of opposition from both outside and inside the church emerged. The opposition began on February 3, 1979, when the Los Angeles Times headed an article with the words, 'Woman's Place is at Home', and proceeded to condemn a sermon MacArthur had preached on January 21, from Titus 2:4-5, where Paul encourages 'young women . . . to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home'. The newspaper claimed that the sermon had brought 'the firing of five or six secretaries on the church staff'. The report was false.
What had happened was that, following the sermon, numbers of women re-examined their priorities, and some who were full or part-time church employees resigned in order to give higher priority to their homes and children. The Board of Elders endorsed the sermon, and stated that the desire of the church was 'to employ only those people whose employment would have no negative impact on these God-ordained priorities'.
In subsequent years, MacArthur would often summarize the scriptural teaching on married women with such words as: Whether a woman works outside the home or not, God's primary calling for her is to manage the home. It is the most exalted place for a wife . . . far more crucial to the future of a woman's children than anything she might do in an outside job.!
From within the church problems also suddenly emerged in that same year 1979. While the elders were supportive, and the congregation flourishing, John had not noticed anything untoward in the attitude of some of the additional pastoral staff employed to support him. Perhaps a trait in his make-up, noticed by a later associate pastor, 1s relevant: 'You were always quick to believe the best about people—and the last to believe anything negatrve—sometimes even to a fault." Trouble erupted suddenly at a Tuesday morning staff meeting. MacArthur opened the meeting, as he often did, by expressing his appreciation for their help and friendship, only to be stopped dead by the words, ' Should a Wife be Employed Outside the Home?' in Successful Christian Parenting (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), pp. 224-6.
? Tom Pennington, speaking in 2009.
'If you think we are your friends you have another think coming!' He then found that the speaker was part of a mutiny. The experience shocked and devastated him. It was not so much the personal criticism that hurt, but the realization that there was disloyalty to the ministry at the level of the leadership. Those he had taken to be his friends, whom he had personally mentored, were undermining him behind his back. Such experiences, sadly, are not unknown in Christian work.
On June 12, 1979, MacArthur wrote to Dr George Sweeting of Moody Bible Institute, expressing his regret that something of an emergency was preventing him speaking at an Institute
Conference in Chicago at that time.
It is not clear whether this letter relates to repercussions from 'Black Tuesday' (as the incident above came to be called), or to other problems:
Dear George
I wanted to explain my telegram with a personal letter to explain a bit more thoroughly my absence. This past month has been a difficult time for us in terms of re-evaluating our staff. Our music director resigned to take on another position . . . In addition to that rather crucial situation, the elders found themselves in the midst of some rather traumatic changes in the direction and assignments of our staff which called for a series of morning and evening meetings during that very same week [as the Chicago conference]. They felt it was crucial that I be there to take part.
I feel badly about missing the conference because it's been such a special time in my life. I was torn as to my responsibilities in both places and felt the Lord leading me to make the commitment to be here at Grace, even though it perhaps caused some difficulty for you.
By this same summer of 1979 another issue had begun which continued to be threatening for years to come. A few years before this, Kenneth Nally, a university graduate and athlete, had professed faith in Christ and joined the church family. By this date he had become a seminary student in the Talbot extension in Sun Valley. It was now that a broken relationship with his girlfriend triggered a long-standing depressive tendency and, despite the counselling by members of the church staff, a crisis came when he unsuccessfully sought to end his life. Only at that point did MacArthur become involved, visiting the young man in hospital. For this care the father appeared grateful, but when the son left hospital a serious problem remained which brought father and son directly to talk with John.
It became clear that a strong conflict existed within the family, so much so that Ken did not want to return there. Mr Nally Sr was an Irish Roman Catholic and deeply resentful of Protestantism. To ease a critical and possibly dangerous situation, John offered to take Ken to his home for a while, with the promise to do all they could to help. This arrangement was accepted, but it had to end by March 26 when John left on a two-week first visit to Scotland. While he was away Ken Nally shot himself in the apartment of a friend.
This was a very heavy blow to MacArthur, who thought highly of Ken and took seriously the young man's belief that he was called to the gospel ministry. Inevitably the death caused more media attention, with the congregation investigated for information on any other suicides that had occurred under MacArthur's ministry. One newspaper quoted a woman who said, 'I can understand why that fellow killed himself. I went to that church once and three days later tried to kill myself!