The Purpose of Ministry (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Back From Vacation and Ministry Updates

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it has been about seven weeks since I've been in the ultra plush, ultra plaid, it's our favorite design here at No Compromise Radio studio.

It's been that long since I've been here in the studio. I don't even know if I know how to tape the show. I had recorded about 35 shows in advance, maybe about 39, I think. And then I went on vacation.

I went to a Bible conference. I just kind of went and took off. And so this is the first show back. I don't know what day this will play, probably in early September, but right now it's the middle of, let's see, middle of August.

And here I sit. Just a few quick updates and some house cleaning since I haven't been back in the studio for some time. Number one, I have not had aspartame since February. So I forgot the person who emails me down in Florida.

She's a very nice lady. Let's see, March, April, May, June, July, August. We have my six months anniversary, no aspartame. Now I am having some chlorine molecules in Splenda occasionally, but I try to stick to the Truvia, the Stevia, but occasionally I will have to have a little Splenda in California.

That's where I was. They have Diet Coke and they have Pepsi One with Splenda, or as we say here in New England, Splender. And so I did engage, indulge, partake of some of those things. And you know, my conscience was pretty clean afterwards.

It was pretty good. So at least aspartame, no. Chlorine molecule, Splenda, yes. Secondly, on a more, I don't know what kind of note it is, not a more pertinent note, but my headaches are pretty much gone.

I'm feeling much better for those five to six months. Last year, it was very, very difficult to live, to minister, to preach, to talk, to do no compromise radio. I thought maybe, you know, we just need to cancel the radio.

I don't need that pressure to tape four new shows a week. And I was about ready to kind of call it quits, but as Professor Montoya said, at the Master's Seminary, you don't call in sick, you crawl in sick.

And so it's amazing how God can use crushed, weak vessels and instruments. Thank you for praying for me. I appreciate it. I think we recently aired a show on how to pray for your pastors. If you pray for me, I really, really appreciate it.

Conferences, Classes, and Upcoming Events

Okay, on no compromise radio, just a few things about conferences or things that might interest you if you live locally, or you can always get these on digital recording after the event. We have IBS coming up soon.

Institute for Biblical Studies. This fall, September 8th through October 20th. September 8th through October 20th. Ladies only, taught by Vita Farah. I think there's about 28, 30 people already signed up.

You can go to our website, bbchurch .org, and it's seven or eight classes taught by Vita Farah, who knows the scripture, knows the text, and people are very excited about the class, learning how to be a godly lady and dealing with sanctification.

I think that's the topic. I forgot to write it down. After that, we are going to have other classes, but for right now, that's the information I have. And don't forget the Wretched Radio Conference held here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Wretched Radio is going to hold a conference here at Bethlehem Bible Church. We're just the hosts. We don't really do much, but Todd Freel will be here late September, I think September 23rd. You can go to wretchedradio .com or org, whatever it is, and sign up there.

You can't sign up on our site. Freel will be here. Who else is going to be here? Trevor Wax, I think, is one of the speakers, and I'm a speaker. And Challies, Challies is going to be here. And there's one other guy, but I can't really remember right now.

A Free Concert in California and a Missed Song Reference

So I'm just ramming along, and I'm already down three minutes, four minutes in the show, and what have I said? I haven't really said anything provocative or anything controversial. Oh, here's an interesting story in California.

So they have free concerts in San Jose, downtown San Jose, at Cesar Chavez Park. And we decided to go to the free concert and took my family, my wife, my four kids, and we went off on a little excursion.

So if you're a legalist, you might want to just turn off the radio for about 60 seconds, and then you can turn it right back on. We went and saw the English Beat, and the English Beat is a ska band, and they were around 20 years ago, and they just play these free concerts now, relegated to the role of free concert players.

They probably got paid by the city, by Cesar Chavez, maybe even himself. And I shook Dave Wakeling's hand, and he is the lead singer, and there was some time where we could talk, but then somebody else came up and got him, and I was going to tell him that I would use Mirror in the Bathroom by the English Beat as the theme song for No Compromise Radio.

I was going to tell him. I shook his sweaty hand and everything, and we were right up in the front end, but it just did not happen. So I think I'm going to have to change the song because he turned his back on me and walked away.

How sad. So on No Compromise Radio, I think we are going to continue on with a variety of different topics. I'll try to stay true to interviewing people on Wednesday, having Steve in on Tuesdays. Monday is a snippet of one of my sermons at Bethlehem Bible Church.

If you haven't been to the church, by the way, and you live locally, go ahead and come by and visit us at 307 Lancaster in West Boylston, and we'd love to have you. We just purchased 50-some acres of land in Boylston, one town over, and as money comes in, we will build a new building.

But when I say as money comes in, it's going to have to come in probably from outside sources because we're not going to call in the fundraisers, we're not going to come in the extortionists and the people that do the pledge drives and professional money extractors for our people.

I don't think that would be the way to go, and we're just going to trust the Lord that he will help us build something. If not, there's a lot of land there for ticks and for leeches. There's a couple of big ponds there.

I guess we could have motorcycle rallies and paintball wars. So, you know, hey, what are you going to do? If you'd like to buy a building, we're trying to sell this building where I'm at now. I don't know if I want to sell this plush, lush, no-compromise studio, though.

I don't really think I'd like to do that. By the way, if we do get a new building sometime, maybe we need to have our real studios because if you saw where I'm sitting right now, you wouldn't think it was a real studio.

Well, that is enough for no-compromise radio. Just a, hey, I'm back, trying to say hello and give you a quick update. Well, what do I want to talk about today? I think I'd like to talk about church growth today.

Real Church Growth Means Maturity in Christ

Church growth. That is to say, real church growth. You should want your church to grow. If you're a Christian and you are in a church as a layperson or as a leader, you should want your church to grow.

Now, here's the thing. When I say growth, I mean maturity. I mean new believers. I mean the maturation of the saints. And so that kind of growth is the kind of growth that only God can institute, that only God can initiate, that only the Lord can provide.

And so we like it when the church grows and a person in the local church evangelizes and through the instrumentality of the preached word, the Spirit of God quickens and redeems and makes alive. Is that exciting?

Do you like that? Do you like to see baptisms every week at the local church? Well, that is certainly a question that doesn't need to be answered. Yes, of course. And so we want church growth. Now, I don't want church growth that is man-contrived, man-centered, worldly, full of amusement and entertainment, playing to the consumeristic drive of sheep that are immature, or at worst, goats who aren't believers.

That's not what we want, but we do want your church to grow. And so I think it's fair to say that church growth is a good thing as long as it is defined properly. And if you go to the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper and look at churches and see how they advertise themselves, see how they promote themselves, what shingle do they have?

If they've got a small little one inch by one inch space in a local Yellow Pages, or if they've got some two inch by two inch splot, is there such a word as splot? A little blob, a little blurb. Blurb is what I wanted to say.

If you want that, if you want to see it, go to the paper and check it out. But if you've got to advertise yourself, wouldn't you say something like Christ-centered, expositional. I don't know what you would say, but those are two things that I would say.

We exalt Christ through verse by verse preaching, something like that. That's what I try to do. That's my MO. That's my mission statement. But when there are things like, and you've heard me say this before, dress casually.

What does that have to do with anything? I can see that back in the New Testament times. You've got one tunic, maybe two, and you could dress casually. I guess you don't have to cinch it up as tight as it used to be around your neck.

You can just kind of be loose flowing and show your neckline. Dress casually, family-friendly. Now, please, what church in the world that has an inkling about anything, even a mainline, mainstream, liberal Christian denomination, some Methodist or Lutheran or Episcopalian, they even have enough sense to know that Christianity is for families.

What do you mean? If I don't put the sign up family-friendly, bring your family, dress casually, you won't come? That's amazing. Friends, we've forgotten that the local church exists to exalt Christ Jesus and give God glory.

And then we leave the corporate worship service on Sunday and whatever other days we additionally worship, and then we go out and evangelize. And so I am not trying to attract people to this church based on movie clips.

Oh, you'll see Braveheart. I heard someone tell me on Sunday that the church they visited had some lost clips. I heard a sermon just a couple of weeks ago here in New England, in central Massachusetts, and the guy was playing a journey song at the beginning.

I mean, I would have picked English beat if I was gonna do it, but in a worship service, and then did a little exegesis of the journey song, played a little bit more of the journey song, and then eventually got to the Psalms.

I just don't know why people have to do that. I am not trying to pander to immature people. I'm not trying to get them to like me or enjoy the service. I think if you're a Christian and you hear gospel preaching, biblical preaching, you will enjoy it.

But my job is how will I please the Lord today? As a leader, how is God honored? I want Him to be happy. I want Him to be pleased. And if everybody else is pleased, that's a bonus. But if they're not pleased, we'll miss people if they have to leave to go hear journey songs and the Long and Winding Road songs or any other songs that are road songs.

That's just, to me, not necessary. It betrays a confidence, a lacking in confidence, rather, of what the Word of God is, how sufficient it is, how powerful it is, and how authoritative it is. So today on No Compromise Radio, after a slew of kind of introductory comments since I've been back from vacation, we're talking today about church growth.

Colossians 1:28 as the Church's Mission Statement

So look at Colossians 1 .28. Colossians 1 .28, by the way, is on the front of every one of our bulletins. It's on the front of every one of our bulletins, Colossians 1 .28, because that is the mission statement.

That is why we exist. That summarizes succinctly what every church should do, whether that church is Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern, 2 ,000-year-old church, a brand-new church plant. This is what Paul's direction was, and certainly by inference and by implication, it should be for everyone.

Him, talking about Jesus, we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

The goal is for churches, church growth, that is the maturity of the people in the pews. Forget the people that are not in the pews. Those empty pews, pastors, those empty pews, leaders, elders, bishops, deacons, whatever you are, that's not the concern.

The concern is Christ Jesus, and his concern, his mandate to us is to feed the sheep that are there. You can hear Jesus say it to Peter over and over and over three times, as many times as Peter denied him.

Is that related? Maybe, but as many times as Jesus was denied by Peter, now Jesus affirms his love for Peter and the response to that, indicative of I love you, Peter is feed my sheep. And so when I get a church that's full of all kinds of vision statements, I looked up some vision statements the other day, by the way.

People always say, what's your vision statement? Well, I'm just gonna start saying Colossians 1 .28, that's our vision statement. And every week, I just hope people keep maturing and keep maturing, and we'll talk later why it's good to have a maturing church and why false teachers and hucksters don't want churches that are mature.

Here's a page here, accelerate .com articles. It's a different way to spell accelerate, but how to write a church vision statement. Trevor Gore says, remember, this is your vision. It's the way God sees you.

If your vision is small, your church will be small. If you think God's view of your purpose is small, you've been deceived. That's why you need to dream big. So to start off the bat, we've got a wrong conception of what a church is.

Actually, God might want your church to be small. And actually, people with mega churches, it is not because they have a great vision. What if you live in a small town? What if you live in a big town?

What if you have a small building? What if you have a large building? What if you have a very frail pastor who just barely can get up there, but he preaches the word of God? What about the sovereignty of God?

What about the providence of God? What about God's decree? What about the churches that were getting persecuted 2 ,000 years ago, and the Christians were scurrying around in the catacombs? What about their vision?

See, this is corporate America brought in, brought into Christianity. This is Shackley, Amway, Scamway stuff brought into the church, and you've got to think big, and you've got to dream it, and you've got to see it, and you've got to visualize it, and you've got to do this wholesale stuff that I was taught back in corporate America of visualizing and seeing things, and whatever you want, put the picture of that in the refrigerator, and look at it, and drool at it, and say things to it every day.

Here's what this goes on to say. This particular man, Trevor, his home church's vision statement is listed so that we could see maybe what to do. We see the Life Church as a dynamic, spirit-filled, multicultural church.

What if you live in Greenland? Numbering in the thousands, impacting our city, our nation, and our world through leadership, development, and church planning. Well, that's very, very interesting, Life Church, and if that's true, I only see a few things that are missing.

Number one, Jesus. I think that's kind of big, don't you? Where is Jesus? This is like, where's Waldo thing? Where is Jesus? Spirit-filled, okay, but you know what? It's got a small S, so I'll take them at their word since they mulled over this, since they have time working on it, since they have tips to try to tell us how to write a vision statement.

I'll take them at their word that it is a small S, spirit-filled, that people are very enthusiastic, that people are very soul-filled. That's what I'll do. Multicultural church, numbering in the thousands, impacting our city, et cetera, et cetera.

How do you impact the city, nation, and the world through leadership development? Well, you could say, I guess, to give them the benefit of the doubt that you help them develop godly men and godly women, Christ-centered men and women who mature, who, 2 Corinthians 3 .18, begin to reflect the glory of Christ more and more and more, and go out and, as Christians, lead the way.

But, you know what? This is all too man-centered. This is all too sad, isn't it? How much time is spent by church boards, and voting, and congregational things about a vision statement? The vision statement is preaching Christ Jesus.

And you preach Christ Jesus faithfully, as a steward, forgetting success, forgetting numbers, forgetting buildings, forgetting cash, forgetting all that other stuff. And then you preach with an eye toward God blessing His Word and maturing the saints.

He said He would mature the saints. He told us, and the Word is clear, that it performs its work in those who believe. So let's proclaim the truth. Week in, week out. Month in, month out. Year in, year out.

And frankly, as a pastor now for 14 years, there were many years where I'm thinking, is anybody getting this? Can it get through anybody's noggin? Do I have a problem? Well, I do have a problem. But what is going on?

Don't you want to see growth? And it harkens back to the days when I was a teenager, wanting to get taller to be a better basketball player, because height is so essential, if you're slow. And you don't see any growth.

But I have noticed, especially the last three to five years, exponential growth. I'm not talking about people. Yeah, we need to get a new building. We're growing out of the building. And if you like crowded sanctuaries, this probably isn't a place for you to come.

But God is faithful. And it's not like I doubted it before. I just didn't see it. And I shouldn't have to see it, because we should walk by faith. Continue to preach the gospel, no matter what you see.

Preach the Word of God. Preach the full counsel of God. Preach everything from Genesis to Revelation, and people grow. I mean, it is fast. Have you ever taken one of those little kids' toys that's shrunken down?

It's super small, some kind of grow beast thing or something they call them. And you put it in water, and then the thing unfolds. It's kind of like what I'm seeing before my very eyes. And so if you're a pastor, you proclaim Christ, full counsel of God.

You proclaim the Old Testament. There's certainly Christ to be found, Luke 23 and John 5 would tell us that. And watch the church grow. That's what we want. I don't really even want to deal with the new building, the new land, the new expansion.

Go to two services. That's all stuff that's forced upon me by God, because it's His the one. He's the one who's growing the church in terms of numerically. He's the one. And I think people, especially here in central New England, and hopefully around the country and the world, I think people are tired of pablum.

I think they're tired of pablum and gruel from the pulpits, chocked full of journey songs when their lives are turned wrong side up. They're hurting. There are big temptations. There's all kinds of issues with other family members, issues on the job, financial issues.

And they need a high view of God. They need, of course, both His transcendence, that He's over us with His sovereign greatness, and that He's close, His eminence. He's with us, God with us, Emmanuel. We need Bible preaching, the full counsel of God.

And we don't need to cut corners of predestination and election and contour off reprobation and sovereignty. We need to proclaim the whole counsel of God. And then when people's lives are hurting, and they certainly will because of their own sin or because of the fall or because of this world, the evil world system, Satan, whatever, or all the above, then they have a rock.

You need to be educated about the God of the universe so you have an increased trust in this God because you know He's able to perform anything that He says, that His decree will last, that His plan cannot be thwarted, and that if He ever loved you, He'll love you forever, that if you're in Christ, He loves you like His own Son, and He'll never leave you nor forsake you.

There's no condemnation found in you that you have died your old life and you've been raised in the newness of life and you're going to follow Christ and that His words for the apostles in John 14 are words for you as well, that He's the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through Him, and that He's going to prepare a place for His people. So we need Bible preachers. Where are the Bible preachers? You say, well, if I preach the Bible, everybody will leave.

Good, good, because those people want ear tickling and they need some ears boxed is what they need. You read 2 Timothy 4, you're not under the charge of people. Pastors, you're under the charge of Christ Jesus.

You call yourself a pastor, then proclaim the word. And you say, Mike, you seem kind of fired up about it. Well, when you go on vacation, you visit some of these churches and people are ashamed of the gospel.

They never say it, they're kind, they're sweet, they'll talk to you, fine, they've got Christian verbiage, but then the pastor that they have, or the pastor himself, if I talk to him, will get up and it's just goo that comes out, this amorphous blob of nothing.

And I think it's slanderous. I think it's shameful. I think it is on the flip side for pastors, because I did visit two, Steve Watkins and Ron Porich in California, SLV Baptist and Grace Reformation. Those men will stand up and preach the word.

They don't care about how big their churches are. And then it is the proclamation of Christ Jesus for all to listen to his glory and to his majesty and to his beauty and how precious he is. And if the people don't like it, they answer to another.

And so for those men, courageous, bold, blood-bought, then I'm very, very excited. So you've got one or the other. And if you go in the middle, let's just hedge, then you fall into the category of ashamed of the gospel.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ, not just the leaders, but everyone. Well, on No Compromise Radio today, I just gave my introduction to vision statements and church growth and how we want the church to grow.

That is, we want you to mature. Are you maturing? Are you growing? Are you wanting Christ Jesus? He is the way that you are matured.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.