Royal Family Kids

Not so long ago all the buzz was about the new royal born into the British ruling family. But there’s a different Royal Family, and there are some needy kids being ministered to in a special way this week.

I’m referring to a Christian ministry that’s been in existence since 1985 called Royal Family Kids. This non-profit aims to provide camping, clubs, and mentoring for foster kids aged 7 to 12, while at the same time raising the awareness of the “faith community,” really the Royal Family, God’s family better know as the Church, to the needs of abused children.

The founders, Wayne and Diane Tesch, emphasize working with local churches. Their hope is for people to

* Encourage their church to launch a Royal Family KIDS Camp
* Volunteer at their local camp
* Become a faithful supporter
* Pray for the work and the volunteers of Royal Family KIDS Camp

My church has been a supporter of Royal Family Kids for over a decade, and we are currently holding our camp. The congregation was invited to take the name of a camper and pray faithfully for that child. It’s a great way for all of us to be involved, and I believe the most important way we can support the ministry.

Frankly, the numbers about abused kids in the US are staggering. According to the RFK web site, “Annually, 3.6 million cases of child abuse, neglect or abandonment are reported in America.”

Ironically, one of the early justifications for abortion was to eliminate unwanted children, and by extension, abused, neglected, and abandoned children. How’s that strategy working out for us!

Instead, what we’ve ended up with is a devaluation of human life which leads to parents mistreating the very people they are responsible to protect and nurture.

Not that child abuse didn’t exist before abortion, but clearly terminating life is not connected in a positive way to terminating abuse.

The thing is, God can heal and help even when a child suffers at the hands of the adults in his life. For instance I wrote about apologist and author Josh McDowell who opened up some time ago in his book Undaunted about the abuse he experienced in his childhood.

More recently the movie I Can Only Imagine portrayed the real life abuse singer-songwriter Bart Millard experienced.

Seeing the way in which God has used Josh McDowell and Bart Millard, how He has turned the ashes of their crushed lives into flourishing, fruitful newness makes me realize that this same transformation is possible for all the Royal Family Kids we’re praying for.

So if you think of it, join with me this week in praying for my two guys, Bryan and Yan. May God do amazing things in the lives of children others have looked past or hurt or deserted.

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
But the Lord will take me up. (Psalm 27:10)

For more information about Royal Family Kids camp, check out the movie trailer created for the movie inspired by RFK camp which was made a few years ago.

This post is a revised and updated version of one that first appeared here five years ago.

The Church And What It Has Become

I recently heard a partial quote about Christianity, but I didn’t catch the source. What’s more, I didn’t write it down—just the part I remembered of it because I thought it was pretty truthful, as far as it goes.

Christianity started in Israel and became a religion.

It went to Greece and became a philosophy.

Then it passed on to Rome where it became an institution.

From there it went to Europe where it became a culture.

Eventually it traveled to America where it became an enterprise.

Obviously it’s a statement about Christianity in America and in the West in general.

Since I live in the US, I don’t know the particular struggles the Church goes through in places like Asia and Africa. Has Christianity avoided some of the shifts and changes that have corrupted the Church here? I don’t know.

I do know that I wince when I think about Christianity as an enterprise. My mind goes to “snake-oil” preachers and TV evangelists who cared more for making a buck than for the people they were fleecing of their hard-earned money.

I think of the Christian trinkets a certain group of writers and editors and agents used to mock at the yearly International Christian Retail Show. I mean, someone figured out that they could stamp a Bible verse on a tee shirt or a mug or a plaque, and people would pay good money for them. They could make Testamints and Bible-verse bookmarks and Bible covers and pens or pencils with verses stamped on them. “Jesus junk” the critics called it, but the store owners called it “how to get out of the red.”

But the truth is, when I look around me, I see some of those same items in my home. There’s that plaque on the wall and that mug in the cupboard. I’ve bought those pencils to give out to my students. I have some of those bookmarks in my Bible. I am one of the consumers.

Beyond the trinkets themselves, I cringe at the way we have put the gospel up for sale—Christian music, Christian self-help books, Christian fiction, all sold in the Christian bookstore.

And here I am—writing what would likely be considered Christian fiction, trying, even, to make a living from it.

Should I?

Shouldn’t we be giving the gospel away for free?

Of course Scripture also teaches that the worker is worthy of his hire. And I have to say, I like seeing scripture when I look at the particular mug with it inscribed. I like the plaque and the bookmarks. I’m glad I gave the pencils as prizes.

I think there has to be a line. We live in a capitalist society. We aren’t necessarily called to life as if we lived under a different system.

Except, Christians DO live under a different system. We aren’t to be governed by greed. As consumers or as entrepreneurs.

I conclude then that money should never be an obstacle preventing someone from hearing the gospel. Money should not be the driving force behind our “ministries.” Christian schools, for example, once were an outreach of particular churches. They charged tuition to defray some of the cost but mostly staff viewed themselves as missionaries, doing the work of the LORD.

But now, Christian schools strive to compete with public schools by paying their teachers a comparable wage and offering lavish benefits. Tuition, as a result, continues to creep higher, and some schools are pricing themselves out of existence, because their middle income communities can no longer afford to send their children to such an expensive school.

Christian bookstores aren’t doing so well either. But most bookstores are in the same boat, so it’s not possible to say if Christians are doing better or worse than the norm.

The point is, or maybe the question—when did “ministry” turn into “business”? When did coffee shops go into churches? When did we decide to get rich from preaching the gospel, or quoting Scripture?

I don’t think there’s an answer for the culture. America is consumed by consuming. I don’t know if other parts of the West are too, but I don’t see it changing here any time soon. But we can make a difference in our hearts which is where all attitudes reside.

Colossians says that greed amounts to idolatry.

We Americans . . . we Christians, need to check our hearts and see if there is a love of stuff that resides right there as an idol along with our love of God. That’s the way the people of Israel lived for years. Their prophets were constantly admonishing them to destroy their idols and worship God alone. At some point, they thought they were. They built all kinds of altars on high places, never mind that God said they weren’t to do so.

Are the consumerist trappings of Christianity our high places? Are we trafficking in the stuff of Christianity without any true worship? I can only answer that question for myself, but I’m pretty sure, if the Church is to survive here in the US, we all who profess the name of Christ need to go before God and ask Him to do the work of burning the dross away from our faith.

Doing Ministry In The Twenty-first Century

Another pastor has been asked to leave his church—a megachurch, no less, so there’s lots of attention to his failings and his firing. I’m referring to Perry Noble, pastor and founder of NewSpring Church in South Carolina, who confessed to an ongoing overuse of alcohol.

Apparently he’s been trying to grow his church to a membership of 100,000, and the stress got to him, such that tension developed in his marriage. He turned to alcohol to alleviate the problems and of course, alcohol became one more problem on its own.

Noble’s statement said: “What we’ve seen the Lord do over the past 16 years has been a modern day miracle. However, in my obsession to do everything possible to reach 100,000 [members] and beyond – it has come at a personal cost in my own life and created a strain on my marriage.” (“Perry Noble enters treatment centre”)

I have to ask, was the church growth he referred to, a modern day miracle or a result of his obsessive activity? I don’t think it can be both. Either God does the work or man’s marketing techniques does the work.

I can’t help but contrast Pastor Noble’s obsessive work to grow the size of his church (which apparently is more like a denomination “which claims 30,000 members across 17 cities” [“How Perry Noble’s Alcohol Firing by NewSpring Compares to Other Churches”]) and that of George Müller a hundred and fifty years ago. The latter wasn’t trying for great numbers. He wasn’t obsessive about growing his ministry. He continued building orphan homes as God enabled because the list of children who needed a place continued to grow and grow and grow.

The only thing Pastor Müller worked tirelessly at was prayer. And preaching God’s word. He didn’t care if he was talking to a small group in Australia or a large church in Chicago. He preached, during the last eight or so years of his life when he felt called as an itinerant preacher, to any and all churches that invited him. Further, from the beginning of his work with orphans and with support for various other Christian endeavors, he laid his needs before God and did not publicize them.

Today’s churches seem to have capitulated to the organization and the marketing mechanisms used by corporations. We have boards that oversee churches, made up of pastors from other churches, not from a group of elders within the church body. We want celebrity pastors who Tweet and livestream and do Facebook, all for the purpose of growing the size of the “ministry.”

Gone, it would seem, is dependence on prayer and gone is the centrality of God’s word. Now “ministry” means seminars on addiction and dealing with autism and job loss or infertility or any number of other heartbreaking and difficult situations people might encounter.

Does no one still believe that the Bible is actually relevant to our times and our problems? Why are we so quick to look to the devices the world has manufactured, to cope with our hurts and sins? Why don’t we pay attention to Scripture instead?

In fact, shouldn’t we be so plugged into what the Bible tells us about how we ought to walk and please God, that we don’t find ourselves falling into the pit created by following the world’s way of doing things?

The Church should be like a hospital, I think, for those outside. But for those of us inside? We should be all about healthy habits that keep us from getting sick. What would we think of a hospital that spends the majority of its efforts and resources treating the nurses and doctors who worked there?

Of course Christians fail, we stumble, we fall, and we need people with whom we can confess our sins. We need people who will walk beside us so that we aren’t adding sin to sin. I’m not suggesting the Church should not provide a support system for those who need help. But that’s the thing—prayer, relationships with other Christians, a study of God’s word should be a regular part of our lives, allowing room for the Holy Spirit to work.

Churches need pastors who faithfully preach the word of God, in season and out. We need to hear the full council of God’s word, not just messages from favorite passages, hop, skipping, and jumping through the text based on a topic. That’s the way important passages get skipped. That’s why we don’t address addiction in the church or divorce or premarital sex. There are lots of other topics the church simply lets slide—apparently the marketing strategy says talking about a lot of “old time” topics isn’t appealing to the target audience.

I wonder if God’s heart isn’t broken by us going off on our own to do His work without Him.

Prayer For Muslims

This past Sunday, I stumbled upon a booklet calling for Christians to pray for Muslims during the month of Ramadan.

The year I spent in Tanzania when I was seventeen, we hired a man to care for our yard and garden. My parents also invited him to have the noon mean with us—which became our dinner, not lunch, so that Omari would have at least one substantial meal. Through that year we got to know him some, including the fact that he was Muslim by tradition. He didn’t pray at the prescribed times during the day, but he did keep Ramadan.

Ever since then, I’ve been mindful of this special month, but it wasn’t until this year when I read the booklet I referred to that I understood why Ramadan shifted to different points during the year. In essence, the Islamic calendar is shorter than the Gregorian calendar, “with an annual drift of 11 or 12 days” (Wikipedia).

This year the Muslim world will celebrate Ramadan June 18 to July 17. As they have since 1993, a group of Christians have chosen to focus their prayers on the Muslim world during Ramadan. It’s a great goal, I think.

In part, here’s what the press release says:

Christians are gearing up … for the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World, an international movement that began in 1993. Millions of Christians worldwide, and from many denominations, have regularly participated in this concerted prayer effort for Muslims coinciding annually with the month of Ramadan, a time of the year when Muslims are much more deeply aware of spiritual matters.

Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is a time when Muslims are supposed to practice self‐restraint by fasting (abstaining from food and drink and other physical needs) during daylight hours. It is also a time to make peace and strengthen ties with family, friends and neighbors, and do away with bad habits. The Arabic word for “fasting” (sawm) means, “to refrain;” not only refraining from food and drink, but also from evil actions and thoughts. Muslims hope that as a result God will be more inclined to hear their prayers.

WorldChristian.com is the North American coordinator of the annual 30 Days prayer focus designed to raise awareness and encourage new initiatives to reach out to Muslims—around the world and across the street—with more understanding, and with faith, hope and the love of Christ.

When 30 Days started, Islam was not a daily news item; much has changed since the 9/11 attacks. ISIS! Al‐ Qaeda! Boko Haram! These radical terror groups now invade our news channels every day. But there is another story, an even greater story that is unfolding across the Muslim world today.

Mission strategist and author David Garrison says: “We are in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in 14 centuries of Muslim‐Christian interaction. More than 80% of all the Muslim movements to Christ in history have occurred in the past two to three decades, a time period that coincides with the modern prayer movement for Muslims.”

There are a number of organizations sponsoring this prayer effort including Voice of the Martyrs, TEAM, Tyndale, and Christ for All Peoples.

The 30-day prayer plan is to pray for a particular country or region each of the thirty days of Ramadan. If you’re interested, you can access the information on line at the 30 Days Of Prayer site or you can purchase prayer booklets, either individually or in bulk should you wish to make them available to a Bible study or prayer group.

I’m convinced praying for Muslims, whether we view them as neighbors or as enemies, is something that fits into God’s commandment to Christians to love. Too many Christians can skirt the topic of loving Muslims by saying, we don’t know any Muslims. But we forget that we can pray for people we haven’t ever spoken to. The fact is, God knows them all by name. He also hears and answers prayer, and He can do the impossible.

From time to time, I wonder what happened to Omari. For a number of years he would write to my dad, but then the letters stopped. What became of him? Of his family? Did he ever put his faith in Jesus Christ? Are his children preparing to celebrate Ramadan in a few weeks, or are they gathering with other Christians to pray for their Muslim neighbors?

I certainly wasn’t faithful in praying for Omari, though he sat at our table day after day for an entire year, though he spent time learning English from my sister, though he worked diligently at his job. I don’t want to miss another opportunity to pray for people who God can bring to Himself—regular people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed in an understandable way.

I’d like to invite anyone else who might be so inclined, to join the prayer team. There’s nothing to sign, though you’re welcome to go public in the comments, if you want. Sometimes making a commitment others know about helps us to be faithful. But some may think these decisions are for the prayer closet and the prayer closet alone. That’s fine, too. God hears and answers corporate prayer and individual prayer.

Either way, may we see God work to move the mountain of unbelief in the hearts of thousands in the days to come.

Royal Family Kids

All the buzz today is about the new royal born into the British Royalty–His Royal Highness, Prince Yet-to-be-named of Cambridge. But there’s a different Royal Family and the kids being ministered by a handful of them.

I’m referring to a Christian ministry that’s been in existence since 1985 called Royal Family Kids. This non-profit aims to provide camping, clubs, and mentoring for foster kids aged 7 to 12 while at the same time raising the awareness of the “faith community” to the needs of abused children.

The founders, Wayne and Diane Tesch, emphasize working with local churches. Their hope is for people to

* Encourage their church to launch a Royal Family KIDS Camp
* Volunteer at their local camp
* Become a faithful supporter
* Pray for the work and the volunteers of Royal Family KIDS Camp

My church has been a supporter of Royal Family Kids for some years, and we are currently holding our camp. The congregation was invited to take the name of a camper and pray faithfully for that child. It’s a great way for all of us to be involved, and I believe the most important way we can support the ministry.

Frankly, the numbers about abused kids in the US are staggering. According to the RFK web site,
“Annually, 3.6 million cases of child abuse, neglect or abandonment are reported in America.”

Ironically, one of the early justifications for abortion was to eliminate unwanted children, and by extension, abused, neglected, and abandoned children. How’s that strategy working out for us!

Instead, what we’ve ended up with is a devaluation of human life which leads to parents mistreating the very people they are responsible to protect and nurture.

Not that child abuse didn’t exist before abortion, but clearly terminating life is not connected in a positive way to terminating abuse.

The thing is, God can heal and help even when a child suffers at the hands of the adults in his life. Earlier this month I wrote about apologist and author Josh McDowell who opened up recently in his latest book Undaunted about the abuse he experienced in his childhood.

Seeing the way in which God has used Josh McDowell, how He has turned the ashes of a crushed life into flourishing, fruitful newness makes me realize that this same transformation is possible for all the Royal Family Kids we’re praying for.

So if you think of it, join with me this week in praying for my girl Destiny. May God do amazing things in the lives of children others have looked past or hurt or deserted.

For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
But the Lord will take me up. (Psalm 27:10)

For more information about Royal Family Kids camp, check out the movie trailer created for the documentary last year.