Two weeks ago we began discussing how the habitations of God in Scripture, the tabernacles and temples, were divided into three compartments, and how we had applied this to our Katrina relief efforts, breaking it down into three phases, which were:
Phase I: Rescue. The main goal in this phase is simply saving lives and getting people to safety.
Phase II: Stabilization. The main goal of this phase is establishing the POD's for sustaining the people with the basic needs of food, medicine, shelter, clothing, etc.
Phase III: Restoration. The goal of this phase is to restore people's lives, including the infrastructure of the community, homes, businesses, etc.
Now, for the sake of applying these to the church, let's re-title and define them as:
Phase I: Rescue and Salvation. The main goal of this phase is to lead people to Christ and add them to the church.
Phase II: Church planting. The main goal of this phase is to establish and organize the church to help new believers mature and grow strong as the church matures and grows strong.
Phase III: Bearing fruit and multiplication. The Lord commanded His people to bear fruit and multiply. This is so important that He even promises to cut off every branch that does not bear fruit (see John 15:2).
All of these phases can and usually will overlap each other some, and it is common to have all three phases going at once. However, it is important to be able to distinguish what is happening where and by who, which this grid can help us do. Therefore, we need to examine each of these in a little more depth, but first I want to discuss the adrenaline addiction of Phase I and how it can help us or hurt us, depending on how it is managed.
As we covered briefly before, many Christians who experienced those first days of the Katrina relief thought that the power of this response by the church and the miracles they saw were due to the lack of human control and organization. To a degree, and for a period of time, this was true. However, if you continue to use the strategies which were strengths in Phase I for Phase II or Phase III, this will keep you at a very low level of effectiveness in these later phases. There was a point when miracles were not needed as much as hard work. When the Holy Spirit, the Helper, started directing His people to some of the more practical aspects of the work needed, many could not make the transition, and those who had been a great help in Phase I started getting in the way of the rest of the work.
Phase II and III will almost never be as thrilling and exhilarating as Phase I, so this is a very hard change to make in the church when it is needed, but it must be done. This can be one of the biggest leadership challenges of all, and few have been able to do it. Not only do we need to discern what phase we are in, but also who is best for the work of each phase. When you are entering Phase II, you may need to send the Phase I people home or somewhere else. When you enter Phase III, you may need to send most of the Phase II people somewhere else. Some can and will make the transitions, but most will not.
We briefly discussed previously that combat veterans can become combat junkies because of an addiction to the adrenaline that flows in such intense situations, and this can happen in a crisis too. The military has learned a lot about this, which we would do well to learn. Soldiers are not kept constantly in combat, but are rotated so that they are not burned out. After being in combat, a soldier can go through what seems like deep depression as the adrenaline subsides. There are ways to manage this that helps them through this seeming depression.
A few weeks ago at The Call—Nashville, we supplied a large number of workers from our home church in Fort Mill, as well as some of the worship leaders, speakers, ministry teams, etc. The next morning one of the worship leaders who had come out of our church, John Mark McMillan, told me jokingly that he only wanted to play in stadiums from now on. His father, who was standing next to him, then said, "Well you won't play much anymore!" He was also joking of course, but there was some truth in both statements. There are some artists who attain such a level that they only play in large venues with awesome sound systems that no church could duplicate. This is wonderful for them, but it is likely that such are only accomplishing a tiny percentage of the work that is truly building the church. In heaven, some of the real heroes are the faithful worship leaders in small, unimpressive churches, with bad sound systems, who touch God's heart with their faithfulness.
I have seen John Mark pour his heart out as much for eighty kids as for 80,000, and he is, and has been, a great encouragement to me for years. We have others, like Leonard Jones and Suzy Wills Yaraei, who have had an incredible anointing to touch many thousands at a time, and who come back from that and labor faithfully week after week in the local church with just as much devotion as they did at large conferences or big concerts. These are rare treasures. I have seen many others get a touch of the intensity of big conferences or concerts and get ruined, thinking the local church is beneath them now. Most of these you never hear of now, and most have ceased to be of use to the Lord. Some have become disgruntled and bitter, and others are serving the world more than the Lord, thinking they have advanced.
After Phase I of the Katrina crisis, the media and most of the country lost interest. However, in heaven, the leaders and workers who came in for Phase II and III will be some of the greatest heroes of that crisis. They are not likely to make the news here, but they are making the news in heaven, where it will really count. Likewise, many of the great names here on earth are hardly known in heaven, and many of those who are the best known in heaven are hardly known on earth. The Books of Life are going to right many wrongs, and this will be one of them.
However, there are some who God made for Phase I, and we need to recognize this and help them stay on track and not get bogged down in the work of Phase II or III. There are too many anointed evangelists, prophets, and apostles who are trying to be pastors, to everyone's detriment. Most of this is the result of the church not really knowing how to use and support such ministries, but that is why we are doing this study. We have to learn this, and soon. Phase I people will wreck your Phase II and III operations, just as Phase II and III people can really get in the way of Phase I operations. However, if we can connect these properly, we will have a cord of three strands that cannot be easily broken (see Ecclesiastes 4:12), and much of the fruit of our work that is now being lost will be saved.
True missionaries tend to be Phase I people. Many are also wise and understand that their calling is rare, and they maintain a high regard for the church in any phase of its development. The most effective are those who can stay long and tend to bear fruit that remains because they remain vitally connected to the body. Others do not see the value of anything but what they are doing and are constantly trying to put a guilt trip on anyone who is not in Phase I operations like they are. I do not support or allow these in our churches because they will ultimately do more harm than good, both in the churches, and ultimately to their own ministries and missions.
Likewise, there are prayer movements who see themselves as the ones who are entering and dwelling in the Holy of Holies, and some may actually be doing this. However, when they start to consider themselves the most important part of the body, it always leads to a fall. One such young, zealous one told some of our youth that "anything not born out of 24 hour prayer is vomit to the Lord." When those in our youth group did not see this kid's leaders correcting him, it caused them to disrespect both the kid who shared such a foolish thing, and the leaders who did not challenge this type of thinking.
It was many months before some of our kids would go back to their prayer meetings, and there are still parents who carry such a deep concern for that prayer movement that they won't allow their kids to go to their meetings. The saddest part was the way they tended to judge the entire prayer movement that these kids came out of, which was not right. This was one immature statement, which truly did reveal a remarkably distorted view of the Lord and that person's own importance, and certainly a leader present should have challenged this type of thinking. We should not allow any one incident like this to color our thinking of a whole movement. That is one of the devil's most effective strategies, to get us to judge others after their most extreme elements or because of a single incident.
We actually had people in our neighborhood starting to complain about how their kids were becoming addicted to prayer meetings. I just asked them what did they want their kids addicted to? When this started happening to my kids I was thankful, especially knowing what some of our neighbor's kids were getting into. How I wish I had been addicted to prayer at their age!
Even so, extremes are not good. Again, I have never known anyone to go through the first phases of spiritual development without getting into some extremes. Most recognize it and get back on track pretty fast. It is good for the more mature to help the less mature when they start heading to an extreme, but we need to understand that many who are heading to an extreme will not listen for awhile. Did we always listen? No, because its part of growing up.
When I was less than two years old in the Lord, and was leading what was basically a home group for college age kids, but was still kind of a hippie, I told the pastor of the biggest Baptist church in the city that I wasn't sure he was saved because he did not believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit or that healing was for today, and I had already experienced both. To his great credit, he listened patiently to me and my experiences, and resolved to search the Scriptures on them. Even though he may not have had these experiences, he was a prince with God, and I was an upstart, arrogant, and foolish spiritual baby. Since God gives grace to the humble, this man may have demonstrated the greatest humility I have ever seen by being willing to learn something from someone like me. I don't think to this day I would have the grace to react the way he did to me, but if I am able to stay on course and finish well, I will attribute much of the credit for it to that man whose profound humility jolted my pride when I desperately needed it to be jolted.
Even so, let us consider that no priest stayed in just the Holy of Holies or the Holy Place. They all took their turns in the Outer Court too, just as the Lord Jesus Himself did when He walked the earth. He is still found in all three places, and in all three phases of ministry. These are not in competition with each other, but need to be connected and complement each other. Again, it is a cord of three strands that is not easily broken (see Ecclesiastes 4:12).
