Pastors' Blog

I don’t want to be like the nine lepers who raced away from Jesus, so elated with His healing they forgot to even thank Him. Which is why—before even listing a single lesson we’ve learned from Hope Trending, our nine-night/ten program national/global event last week—I would like to thank God and the hundreds of volunteers at Pioneer and Andrews and across North America, who joined forces to make possible this Kingdom innovation. From its inception via the three think tanks a year and a half ago, we have been praying for God to turn Hope Trending into an evangelistic strategy that would penetrate cyberspace through social media for the Kingdom. That He has done so and that He did so through so many creative volunteers is reason enough to praise Him and thank you!

In Paul’s words: “A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here” (I Corinthians 16:9 Message). Were he alive today, no doubt the intrepid apostle would be trolling the Internet and social media for Christ, “a huge door of opportunity” indeed!

What have we learned? While we’ll need more time to carefully, prayerfully comb through the analytics of Hope Trending, here are ten initial lessons for our collective conversation and evaluation:

1    Social media is a frontier wide open for communicating the truth about God. Night after night we repeated our Big Idea, and it was passed from soul to soul in social media: The Maker of all things loves and wants me. I was amazed at how quickly that compelling truth caught on.

2    Social media is everywhere. Including Kazakhstan where a young Muslim began an online chat with our moderators over several evenings. Going to the entire planet through social media and the Internet is truly a no-brainer for the third millennial church. At last count, Hope Trending connected with people from 149 nations.

3    You don’t have to be a Millennial to reach the Millennials. It turns out they (18-35 years old) were the largest demographic slice we were connecting with on Facebook (perhaps not so surprising). (See our HT coordinator Rodlie Ortiz’s initial report in this publication with some additional statistics, including the 835,000+ Facebook connects with Hope Trending.) On Twitter and Facebook (from my scanning) our dominant promoters were Millennials. Reserving the front rows for Millennials (Andrews students) was a wise decision that infused their energy into the live television and livestreaming production each evening. Our HT producer Richard Parke’s production, programming and tech volunteers were all Millennials, but the program presenters were obviously (except for two) not. Go figure. We are grateful.

4    You don’t have to be a Millennial to be reached by social media. Having observed lesson #3, I was glad to discover #4 to be true, as well. Social media is no respecter of persons or ages, according to our adult responses and affirmations. Which further confirms the conclusion we the church need to be doing much more in cyberspace to connect humanity with the soon coming Savior.

5    The budget for an evangelistic endeavor like Hope Trending does not necessarily have to be high in order to achieve a national/global reach. We are grateful for Dan Jackson and the North American Division for going out on a limb with us through their $75,000 grant. And I am thankful for our Pioneer members who gave $55,000 to make Hope Trending possible. We were also grateful for Michigan Conference giving us $5,000. My point is simply that this total is not prohibitive for other congregations and institutions contemplating future initiatives like Hope Trending.

6    Hope Trending is a witness to the power of vision/mission to motivate young volunteers. The design, production, and programming team was Millennial—except for two, all of them serving gratis. Thank you.

7    Hope Trending is a witness to the power of vision/mission to motivate adult volunteers. The 150+ infrastructure and ministry adult volunteers were a huge bonus and essential for Hope Trending’s mission. Thank you.

8    Twenty-minute TED talk length biblical presentations on the truth of God’s character are doable—so is a high octane panel response to each teaching! Kudos to Ty Gibson, Michael Polite, Tacyana Nixon, Melissa Ruhupatty and Randy Sanchez. Not to mention the contagiously warm and energetic hosting of David Franklin!

9    The support of influential bloggers and social media players within our faith community was vital—and they came through with strong promotion. New strategies in social media evangelism will necessitate the support of these experts who have a proven track record in connecting with this hitherto unreached people group. God bless them.

10    If a local congregation like Pioneer can do it, I believe evangelistic innovation through the efforts of a local congregation is possible anywhere. Go for it!

The good news is Hope Trending isn’t over. Thanks to our online archived material (hopetrending.org), it is very possible that Hope Trending’s greatest impact is still future (so pass the word). Consider this promise: “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears” (Philippians 1:6 Message). With that promise, we can know for certain that with Christ the best is yet to come.

That’s the headline of the October 17 TIME magazine piece on the fate of “truth” in this presidential election season. And anybody who watched Sunday evening’s debate knows that both candidates played fast and loose with the truth. But it is not the intent of this blog to play fact checker. We leave that to the pundits.

Instead let’s reflect for a moment on the cavalier treatment of “truth” in today’s social-media-driven culture—and wonder aloud how all of this will impact an apocalyptic mission to communicate divine truth to this civilization.

The challenge any proponent of “truth” faces is that we now live in a media-saturated world “where nothing and no one can be trusted” (TIME 10-17-2016 p. 30). So no matter how many “authorities” are dragged into the public square to proffer their studied opinions and learned conclusions, vast swaths of the public simply write it off as conspiracy. But let a social media snippet go viral, and suddenly the prevailing standard becomes “if people are saying it, it might be true.” The truth is, people are repeating the strangest and most bizarre rumors as unalloyed truth. Spend five minutes clicking from link to link in the internet, and you will discover a dozen examples of playing “footsie with fantasy.”

What happens when websites conflict in their pronouncement of truth or falsehood? “. . . if you’re an ordinary American, you might not know which of these two versions is the truth: you’d just believe the one that sounds most true to you” (ibid., 31). Are there then no objective standards by which we can judge the veracity of claims or the lack thereof? “There is simply too much information for the public to accurately metabolize, which means that distortions—and outright falsehoods—are almost inevitable” (ibid.).

So where shall we turn? “Instead of institutions, people look to their social networks for information. . . . Passed from Facebook to Facebook, retweeted by thousands of anonymous accounts, ideas can spread quickly without verification or context. People tend to share content that gets the most extreme reactions, which means a terrifying but untrue story will be shared more widely than a mildly alarming but accurate one” (ibid., 32).

Is the outlook for the future any rosier for TIME’s writers? “Whatever the outcome in November, none of this will end. . . . Pandora’s box has been opened, and once enough people believe something false, it begins to sound almost true” (ibid.).

“So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14). Stumbled, fallen (KJV) in the streets of public opinion, what a compelling depiction of the fate of truth in this third millennial society!

And yet into this very world Christ still sends his disciples, his friends, you and me. Armed with little more than “the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17)—please note Jesus was clear, “Sanctify [My followers] by the truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17:17)—armed with little more than that Word of Truth, we are sent into the very culture struggling with Pilate’s perplexed question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Knowing there are tens of thousands who want to know, we must hurry to them—privately, personally, publicly, collectively—with the truth as it is in Jesus.

Thus Hope Trending—and why we go together. Only nine nights long—but long enough for the Spirit of Christ to shine the light of Truth into minds still open. So thank you for harnessing your social media for God’s mission. Please get the word out: October 14 8 PM ET @ www.hopetrending.org and on HOPE TV. In a world driven to confusion by the enemy of all Truth, we partner with the triumphant One, “I am the Truth” (John 14:7).

Truth wins.

In the end.

Thus our hope.

Last weekend while the nation awaited the first televised debate Monday evening between the two presidential candidates, a group of U.S. citizens representing each state in this nation convened themselves in quaint colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Their mission—to simulate a “convention of states” (as provided for in Article V of the United States Constitution) for the purpose of amending the Constitution. According to the sponsor of this event’s website, “Rather than calling a convention for a specific amendment, Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG) has launched the Convention of the States Project to urge state legislatures to properly use Article V to call a convention for a particular subject—reducing the power of Washington, D.C. . . . A convention of states needs to be called to ensure that we are able to debate and impose a complete package of restraints on the misuse of power by all branches of the federal government” (www.cosaction.com/strategy).

In last weekend’s event, grassroots representatives from all fifty states essentially went through “a dry run” of what they hope will one day be a formal constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures of this nation (as stipulated by Article V). In their simulated convention the representatives “voted” six amendments, including requiring the states to approve any increase in the national debt, term limits on Congress, and granting the states (by a 3/5ths vote) the power to abrogate any federal law, regulation or executive order (September 25, 2016, email from info@cosaction.com).

Setting aside their political agenda (and the presidential candidate they are backing), what reason do we have to care at all about last weekend’s mock convention? One of the dramatic shifts in this season of national and global politics is the emergence or resurgence of ordinary, grassroots, blue collar, non-elite citizen activists. The Brexit surprise by the voters of the United Kingdom—over-riding the counsel of their political and government leaders by voting the UK out of the European Union—stunned the media elite on both sides of the Pond. The just as dramatic emergence of Donald Trump in this election season is attributed to the same ordinary, grassroots, blue collar, non-elite citizen activists. The point? The heretofore unnoticed masses are demonstrating new electoral muscle. And their prevailing mood seems to be to politically upset the apple cart.

For the follower of Christ and for this apocalyptic movement, Brexit and the presidential election, in and of themselves, are immaterial. But we cannot ignore the power of collective anger in masses tired of submitting to the will and whims of the political aristocracy. True—our mission is radically a spiritual one. Nevertheless we will not be immune to the effects of the widening socio-economic, racial, ideological, and eventually religious divide nationally and globally. One day an angry grassroots movement (perhaps in a time of crisis or deep national schism) may find the will to abrogate the Constitution of its basic rights and cherished freedoms we once considered inviolable. One hastily convened constitutional convention could undo even the most revered liberties.

Hope Trending: A Crash Course on How to Live without Fear begins in two weeks. Live to the world (via www.hopetrending.org) and live to this continent (via HOPE TV), Hope Trending will communicate the compelling portrait of the only Being who can yet save this civilization from its own self-destruction—the God of love manifested in the life and death, the resurrection and soon-coming of the Messiah Creator. “We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10 TEV).

It is the right time to share the Good News with our friends, our classmates, our neighbors, our colleagues. The Hope Trending invitation card is available for you at our greeting stations here at Pioneer. (Need more—go online and print off as many as you wish.) Two weeks. Time to pray. Time to invite. And not too late to intercede before God on behalf of our troubled and divided nation.

One last reminder from history—the truth about God has always shined brightest when it was darkest. It’s time to let it shine again!

I was visiting with a student in the cafeteria this week when some faculty friends joined us at the table. “Hey—did you hear about the joint statement the bishop of Rome and the patriarch of Moscow released last February when they met in Havana?” I hadn’t. Turns out our conference president Jay Gallimore had referenced the joint statement in an editorial in a recent Michigan Memo. And sure enough, when I later googled “pope” “patriarch” “Havana,” I found the concord.

In fact here is the paragraph (#24) in question:

24. Orthodox and Catholics are united not only by the shared Tradition of the Church of the first millennium, but also by the mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in the world today. This mission entails mutual respect for members of the Christian communities and excludes any form of proselytism. We are not competitors but brothers, and this concept must guide all our mutual actions as well as those directed to the outside world. We urge Catholics and Orthodox in all countries to learn to live together in peace and love, and to be “in harmony with one another” (Rm 15:5). Consequently, it cannot be accepted that disloyal means be used to incite believers to pass from one Church to another, denying them their religious freedom and their traditions. We are called upon to put into practice the precept of the apostle Paul: “Thus I aspire to proclaim the gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on another's foundation” (Rm 15:20). (www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-joint-declaration-signed-by-pope-francis-and-patriarch-kirill-61341/)

Did you catch that? “This mission entails mutual respect for members of the Christian communities and excludes any form of proselytism.” The notion of brotherly cooperation rather than cut-throat competition within the Christian community—what’s not to like about that? Living “together in peace and love”—ditto.

But consider the meaning of “proselytism”: “ . . . it now refers to the attempt of any religion or religious individuals to convert people to their beliefs, or any attempt to convert people to a different point of view, religious or not” (www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=proselytism). 

What my own faith community would consider “evangelism” (the proclamation of the “evangel,” or Good News of the gospel to all peoples) is increasingly being redefined by more powerful voices, as Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill expressed: “disloyal means . . . to incite believers to pass from one Church to another, denying them their religious freedom and their traditions.” But is that a fair reading of Jesus’ commission—“Go and make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19, 20)? Does communicating the “everlasting gospel” embedded in the Three Angels’ Messages (Revelation 14:6-12) deny people(s) “their religious freedom and their traditions,” as the joint statement declares?

Is it not the embodiment of the Protestant Reformation to proclaim the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ to all peoples of earth, both in and out of Christendom? Are there not millions who bear the name of Christ, but who have yet to discover the “blessed assurance” of His salvation by grace through faith alone? 

In five weeks Hope Trending will encircle the earth with a livestreaming invitation to all peoples to come to Christ, the only Hope for our dying civilization. In five weeks Watch Parties locally, nationally, globally will gather (October 14-22) to hear the Creator’s appeal to this generation.

But the joint statement is a sobering alert that one day public access to all peoples will be curtailed. It is no coincidence that Vladimir Putin, five months after the joint statement, announced a law curtailing “proselyting” in Russia (http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/20/back-to-the-soviet-era-putins-new-law-could-lead-to-religious-crackdown/). Ostensibly under the aegis of an anti-terrorism crackdown, such a law could be duplicated in any country in a time of emergency or crisis.

What we can do today may not be possible one day. So please join me in earnestly petitioning the mighty Spirit of God to harness the technology, ignite the proclamation and raise up a generation of radical witnesses within this faith community—men and women unafraid to go where Christ sends us, giving heed only to the joint statement of Christ and Scripture. “So help us, God.” Amen.