Message of the Month  by Pastor Paul  April 2020

When I started out in ministry in 1974 at the age of twenty-five I had no idea of how things would work out - but I did have a sense of direction.  I wanted to get as close to New Testament church as possible in the context of 20th century life.

 

I would like to tell you about something that happened very early on which helped to lay a foundation that I have been building on ever since.  I was visiting our local Christian bookshop one day during the first few months of my ministry and a young man about the same age as me, came up and asked if I was the pastor of the Assembly of God church in Thetford to which I replied that I was.  He then introduced himself as being a member of the AOG church in Lakenheath which is a neighbouring village famous for its American Airforce Base next door.

 

The young man whose name was Chris, was half British and half American and had been given an honourable discharge from the US Airforce basically because he had become not only a Christian, but a very vocal evangelist who was too hot for them to handle, so it was easier just to let him go! His parents were in the USA but he had chosen to stay in England for the time being.

 

Chris and I became friends from that day and soon he came and joined the church I was pastoring.  As I approached the end of my first year in the ministry Chris invited me to go with him to visit his hometown of Gresham, Oregon in the USA.  The church he belonged to there was called East Hill Church which had grown from 23 people to over 2,000 by that time.

 

The Pastor there was Jerry Cook and it just so happened that they were holding a very small conference for about 12 pastors and their wives called INTERACTION where for a week they allowed them to observe and learn from everything that was going on in this vibrant growing church.  Chris and I were invited to join this event and I learnt as much there in one week as I did in a year at Bible college!

 

I had already heard a lot of teaching on tapes that Chris had from the church.  Jerry Cook, who was in his mid-thirties, was an outstanding Bible teacher – very real, very informal (he sat on a bar stool to preach), often funny and very easy to listen to.  When I met him for the first time it was like greeting a friend that I had known all my life - he was just so normal and relaxed.

 

The reason the church had grown so large in a short space of time was not just that Jerry was such a great Bible teacher but because of a very clear direction based on three Biblical concepts – love, acceptance and forgiveness.  Jerry went on to write a bestselling book with those three words as its title and it remains one of those Christian classics which has been reprinted several times and is still available today.

 

In his book Jerry talks about each local church needing a solid philosophical base on which to build its life and ministry.  Here are a few quotes from the book which I hope will be helpful:

 

  LOVE

 

“Today the Church of Jesus Christ needs to make a bold commitment to love people and then dedicate itself to fulfilling that commitment. Our whole life-style should tell people ‘If you come around here, we’re going to love you. No matter who you are or what you’ve done or how you look, smell or behave, we’re going to love you’… A church that can make that commitment to every person is a church that’s learning to love and a church that will be a force for God.”

 

  ACCEPTANCE

 

“Love means accepting people the way they are for Jesus’ sake. Jesus spent his time with dirty, filthy, stinking, bent sinners.  And when those kinds of people find someone who will love and accept them, you won’t be able to keep them away.”

 

“Unreserved acceptance of people should be a habit with us.  There’s no other way to get close enough to people to help them at the level of their deepest needs.   When we cultivate the habit of accepting people they open up to us, they like us, they trust us instinctively.”

 

   FORGIVENESS

 

“I like Catherine Marshall’s concept of forgiveness as she develops it in her book Something More.  She suggests that forgiveness is releasing another from your own personal judgement… Unless I can be assured of your forgiveness I cannot really open myself to you.  You see, sooner or later I will disappoint you and fail you.  Not by design or desire, but I am imperfect; I’m still under construction.  I must know that you will not condemn me when my weaknesses and flaws and sins begin to show.  I need the assurance of your forgiveness – a forgiveness with no bitter aftertaste.”

 

  LOVE ACCEPTANCE AND FORGIVENESS

 

“A pastor’s obligation to people is first to love and accept and forgive them and second to bring them to ministry readiness by teaching them to do the same.”

 

“When love, acceptance and forgiveness characterise our lives and our churches, the Lord will send us people who need to be made whole.”

 

“When love, acceptance and forgiveness prevail, the church of Jesus Christ becomes what Jesus was in the world: a centre of love designed for the healing of broken people, and a force for God.”

 

Jerry Cook’s book is still available from Amazon: LOVE ACCEPTANCE & FORGIVENESS, Equipping the Church to be truly Christian in a Non-Christian World.  Bethany House Publishers 2009