We’ve been teaching and preaching about issues that have been controversial in the church for hundreds of years: ranging from the assurance of our salvation, to the motivation of our giving. These things have been in our hearts and in our private conversation for many years, but we have held them inside for fear of the loss of relationships with dear and precious people in Harrisburg and around this country.
But the season has arrived in which we must speak forth what we truly believe, and utter those things that will show where we really stand on some very key issues in our walk with the Lord.
By taking this stance, we are not saying that we are right and everyone else is wrong. As we have taught you, many of these issues have been debated for hundreds of years by the most brilliant historians and theologians of all time. Our little perspective is not going to tip the scales on these matters in any way. However, we still must be fair to our church family and true to God and ourselves to declare where we stand.
In our eight years of living in Harrisburg (seven as senior pastors), we have come across a steady stream of abused and misused Christian Believers. Many have attended churches and sat under ministers who assaulted them weekly with gross misinterpretation of scripture, along with their personal preferences and pet peeves.
By the time many of these people visited Urban Life, they were so beaten down and broken, that our simple acts of love and kindness were viewed as just another ploy to take advantage of them.
Some people had created pastoral expectations in their minds that were so high that it was impossible for anyone to meet them. So they left us as soon as we failed to meet their unrealistic expectations.
We went through many changes trying to adjust to these dynamics. One of those dynamics was our failure to clearly teach all of what we truly believed and understood the scriptures to mean.
Over the past three years, we were finally able to establish a steady diet of sound teaching and a consistent flow of the Word of God for individual and family healing. Week after week, we have striven to teach and instruct the people of God, providing the guidance and counsel of His heart.
We’re pretty sure that some of our members have wondered why we haven’t hammered them over the head about church attendance by yelling, “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves!”
Others may have wondered why we haven’t passed the offering plate and screamed, “Will a man rob God?” to motivate them to tithe. The reason is simple. We are trying to lead them into a loving relationship with God.
My wife wrote a song over 12 years ago called Guided In Life By Your Eye. This songs comes from Psalm 32:8 which reads: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. This Psalm describes a relationship with God that is so intimate that a mere look or facial expression can communicate His heart.
So many churches and ministries in America have been built by fear and intimidation that many of today’s pastors cannot imagine standing before a congregation and telling them, “I ask you to assemble together this week for fellowship and the Word simply because we love God.” He doesn't have to offer special activities and events.
Or can you imagine a pastor telling a congregation, “I ask you to financially support this church, not because you have to; not because you’re afraid God will curse you, but simply because you love Him.”
Most ministers would expect that building to be empty every week and eventually close down because no one attended or gave money any more since they weren’t being forced or enticed to do it.
We are persuaded of better things about the Urban Life family. We might be totally out-of-our-minds crazy in this matter, but we refuse to build a congregation that has to be forced, manipulated, intimidated and dominated into submission to God. We’re not like that in our marriage relationship with one another or in our parenting with our sons, so we will not try to be that way towards the people of God.
What we are trying to say to the Urban Life family is, “Let’s worship, serve, assemble and give, simply because we love Him.”
Urban Life Church is becoming a place where we no longer need a crisis to MAKE us pray. We are becoming a place where it doesn’t take a personal financial dilemma to FORCE us to give. We are becoming a place where a worship leader doesn’t have to TELL us what to do. We are becoming a place where a personal benefit is not attached to our pursuit of God and His presence.
Let’s be practical for a minute. I want my wife to WANT to love me and WANT to be with me, not just because we recited the wedding vows, so now she has to. I want my sons to come to me, not only when there’s a problem, but sometimes simply because they WANT to talk to their dad.
These past three years of healing messages and healing encounters, like John and Kerry Shuey’s Breaking Free Weekend, were all designed to bring us to the place where we are healed and free to BE who God created us to BE. This level of relationship shows WHO Urban Life Church has become; people who are guided by the eye of God.
Over the next few weeks, our teaching is going to become very radical. It will be rooted and grounded in the Word of God. However, it will be radical because we are going to identify what we have been told and taught, that did not come from the Word of God. Many things came from the traditions of men and the principles of the world.
But no matter how radical it seems, and no matter how much it will challenge us, we just want it to be clear: Everything that we are teaching and everything that we living, is to lead our church family to a place where everything we say and everything we do is simply because we love God.
