April Newsletter

Stories of Grace
Steve Musser, District Superintendent

A few weeks ago, a pastor in the district asked me, "We’ve heard you talk a lot about, ‘Becoming ‘Churches without Walls,’ but how will we know when we’ve succeeded?"

I said to him, "We will be ‘Churches Without Walls’ when our congregations are filled with stories about people who have been forgiven and transformed through faith in Jesus." When we hear repeated accounts of forgiveness and transformation like that of Zacchaeus.

We don’t know why Zacchaeus sold out his own people and became a tax collector for the Romans. We don’t know how he came to love money more than people. But we DO know that he was absolutely dumbfounded when he realized that the Son of God loved him.

Zacchaeus probably hadn’t experienced real love before this. But once Jesus looked into his eyes and called out his name, he was never the same. And from this time forward no one would ever be able to understand him without knowing the story of his encounter with the Son of God. From this day forward Zacchaeus’ story would forever be focused on the day that Jesus came into his life.

How will we know when we’ve become a "Churches Without Walls?" We will be "Churches without Walls" when our meetings are filled with the stories of people who have received forgiveness and who have become new creatures in Christ. We will be "Churches without Walls" when there are so many stories of God’s redemption and transforming power in our midst that our churches will feel led to start holding "Sharing Services" just so all the stories can be told - just so God can be glorified in what He has done. When we too will be able to say, "The Lord is adding to our number daily those who are being saved."

I’ve come to the undeniable conclusion that God wants us to be churches where He can write hundreds of stories of grace. But these stories will only be written at the moving of God’s Spirit. God does the writing of our stories, He does it all - it’s not up to us. God writes our stories by pouring out His Spirit on His children. And God urges us to pray for an explosion of the harvest, an explosion of new birth.

My fellow laborers for the Gospel, if we will not pray for His Spirit to convict and transform the precious people of this district - if we will not allow God to remold our hearts and lives so He can add to our number daily those who are being saved, then we shouldn’t be surprised if He takes His blessings away and gives them to another movement or denomination who will share His heart.

In Jeremiah 3:11 God said faithless Israel (who had abandoned the true worship of God and who had allowed idolatry to spread throughout the land) was more righteous than unfaithful Judah! Why? He said this because Judah did not come to Him with all her heart - BUT ONLY IN PRETENSE. Judah didn’t come to Him totally yielded - totally surrendered - she only came to Him in pretense. She was only going through the motions.

When God pours out his Spirit on a church, the way I believe He is wants to pour it out on us, God’s people change. They change just like Zacchaeus did. When God pours out his Spirit on a church like He did in Acts 2, God’s people begin to love one another - they begin to sacrifice for one another. When God pours out his Spirit on a church, God’s people change their priorities - they begin caring more about the eternal world to come than about rotting treasure on earth.

When God pours out His Spirit on a church, they begin to look at the world through the eyes of God rather than through the eyes of man. And they change! God’s people begin living with little thought for the temptations of this earth and live instead with their eyes fixed on the prize of salvation and redemption that will be made manifest in God’s glorious kingdom to come.

And when God’s people begin living like this - the world notices - just like they did in Acts 2. The world notices. They notice that something is different about those Christians - they don’t act like everyone else. There’s something different about them. And the world wants to know what it is.

Think of all the stories - the precious stories that are waiting to be told as God builds His Churches without Walls - churches against which the gates of hell will not prevail! But it begins with prayer. It begins with prayer.