THE STAINED GLASS BARRIER

PRESENT TRENDS BACK TO SIMPLE CHURCH



From the sanctuaries to the streets . . . doing the works of Jesus wherever we find a need.



As we read through the life of Jesus in the New Testament it is difficult to find him organizing a religious gathering or an evangelistic meeting, or any kind of meeting. It seems that all of his large meetings, such as the feeding of the five thousand or the multitudes that gathered on the shores of the Sea of Galilee all took place more or less spontaneously as crowds would gather to hear what he was saying and to be healed of their diseases.



Jesus sometimes spoke in the synagogues on the Sabbath. Once he sent out the seventy, two by two, into the towns and cities where he himself would come later. He arranged for the final meal with his disciples, but aside from that, most of his earthly ministry took place as he walked among the people, taught them, and met their needs as he moved about in the ordinary events of daily life.



Jesus’ strategy was to go where the people were; to see the needs and minister to those needs. We find him healing a man at the Pool of Siloam as he walked by and saw his need. We see him feeding the hungry, ministering, teaching in the Temple, teaching on the streets, at the beach, in a synagogue or on a mountainside.



Once as he sat near a well waiting for the disciples to return with food for lunch he spoke the word of life to a woman of Samaria who had come to draw water. This resulted in making a trip to her town where so many people were listening and receiving his word that he stayed in that town two whole days preaching the Kingdom of God.



Nicodemus came to him at night seeking to know who he was and Jesus shared with him the message of salvation. It was to Nicodemus that Jesus spoke the most life changing sentence ever uttered, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)



As he walked along a crowded road one day he saw Zaccheus, a man small of stature, who had climbed a tree to get a better look at Jesus as he passed by. Jesus invited him to come down from the tree and as they ate a meal together Jesus led him out of his darkness into the light of life. Zaccheus became a different man right on the spot!



He healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever when he arrived at their house for a meal. She immediately arose from her bed of affliction and began to serve them.



Jesus' primary ministry was spontaneous responses to the needs of people as he walked through each day. In every place where he found people in need, he met that need in the power of the Holy Spirit.



At the age of seventeen, when I first started going to church, it was a tremendous challenge to learn "church talk." The King James Bible was the only Bible people used in those days in West Texas. Everybody prayed using King James language. It was unthinkable to address God in our prayers as "you." To be respectful we had to use "thee" and "thou." Then there was "wouldst" and "couldst" and "whence" and "hither" and "whither" and "thither." I finally got used to it but it took me a while.



Then I had another problem, I was finding it difficult to talk to people about spiritual things when I was not in a church setting; to talk about Jesus to people at work or to my friends who did not know Jesus was a huge leap of faith for me!



Then, the day came when I knew God was calling me to preach! The thought that I was to stand up on a stage behind a pulpit and speak formally to a lot of people through a microphone was the scariest thing I could imagine! At age seventeen, the first time I had to do that, I became physically ill as I sat on the platform awaiting my time to talk. I almost vomited on stage right there in front of the congregation, but somehow I got through the ordeal. It was only a three - minute talk on "Youth Night" at our church, but it was a major challenge for me!



From the time I was a very small boy, I was always very shy and quiet around people. The fear of man was on me something awful for as long as I can remember! But I went off to Bible College and finally learned how to bring formal teachings from the pulpit and how to lead in prayer in a public meeting. But in spite of the curious language we always used as we preached and prayed in church, somehow I learned how to witness to unsaved people one on one.



But something was still missing. It was not the spontaneous, unplanned kinds of things that Jesus did in his ministry. All our evangelistic and teaching ministries had to be planned well in advance so that we could be well prepared and most of our evangelistic efforts were inside the four walls of a church building. I was still not trained to always be ready to minister healing to the sick or do the other things Jesus did such as, speak a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a word of prophecy or rebuke the devil as I went about my daily routine. That was all in another realm of ministry that I learned to move in later on, but at the time, I trembled to even think about it.


Recently God has given me a way to move toward the Jesus kind of spontaneous ministry. It is by praying daily with another believer the Divine Appointment Prayer: "Father, give us a divine appointment today with someone who is hungry for God, or sick, or in need, and give us the grace to minister the love of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit." God is answering that prayer for us and I am encouraging people everywhere to find a partner and pray that prayer together daily in person or by phone. It is exciting what God will do in answer to that simple prayer of agreement! "If any two of you on earth shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my Father in heaven." - Jesus





Robert Fitts
76-6309 Haku Pl
Kona, HI 96740
robertjoni@gmail.com
www.robertfitts.com


A Declaration of Unity
I belong to everything that belongs to Jesus and everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to me! It's not us and them. It's just us! There's only one Body of Christ, and the problems of the church, the whole church, are our problems, for we are the church and we can do more united than we can do divided! So let's unify, simplify, and multiply!

Divine Appointment Prayer
Father, give me a divine appointment today with someone who is hungry for God, or sick, or in need, and give me grace to minister the love of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Winning the War on Terror by Prayer
Father, give every terrorist an encounter with Jesus such as Paul had on the road to Damascus.

Living to Give
Father, make me a generous giver today! Show me where to give and what to give, and let all my giving bring glory to the name of Jesus.

Grace, YES! Law, NO!
Law demands, demands, demands
But gives me neither feet nor hands
Grace and Truth are better things
They bid me fly and give me wings