I wish you would quit condescending me.
Maybe my mistake in discussing this with you is that I am assuming you are a pastor. Are you? Because that will make a big difference in my thoughts. If you are, then you cannot neglect 80% of the people in your church system. If you are not, then I can see you working with a few people to teach. But heavens! If you teach people the way you post on these forums, I honestly don't know how much good you are doing. I say this with a honest heart and without malice on my part.
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I'm not offended by your statement. My style doesn't work well with religious people. It is easier for me to teach Biblical principles to hungry new people than to teach christians entrenched in a religious system. Ironically, most of my time is training and teaching new people. My mentoring style is successful.
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Are Christians supposed to be "conquering" people? That concept would be 'nicolaitan' principles or deeds, which Christ said He hates. I think I would rephrase that if I were you.
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A better term is influencing people to live a particular lifestyle.
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But...you don't do it...do you? That is... spend the other 20% of your time with the 80% of the people. If you are a pastor, that is very little time for the bulk amount of people.
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You assume everyone in the 80% needs you all at once. The fact is they don't. Not everyone is in the 80% is in the hospital or is experiencing a personal crisis at the same time. You address the needs as they occur.
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How many of your hypothetical 20% will go out and evangelize? No doubt there will be a few. But my experience with the few who spends an extraordinary time with the pastor tells me that most of them likely consider themselves to be in the 'inner circle', the 'elite' of the church, and form their own clique that
shuts everybody else out. I haven't seen a church yet that does not do this. Perhaps there are, but not in my region.
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Jesus had the same problem. He pointed that out a few times. Evangelism takes on different forms. I'm not sure how you would define evangelism. Evangelism could be as simple as sharing your testimony with someone. Evangelism could be an organized outreach to the community. Some people evangelize on the street corner thumping a Bible.
Outreach is important. It is the pastor's responsibility to teach the importance of evangelism. Outreach is what keeps the church from growing stale.
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That is not true and you know it..you just won't admit it.
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My experiences in legalism is most seasoned chrsitians are happy to sit on the pew, give a few bucks in the offering, maybe show up on church workday or help with a fundraiser and that's about it. The sad part is the people who want to help can't because they don't make the grade.
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Reality is, there are very few people who actually commit themselves to reach the masses.
If this were true today, then why aren't our cities busting at the seams, overflowing with pentecostal churches? Why aren't the headquarters doing seminars for outreach ministry? Why aren't groups of people with 20% teaching them growing and dividing and taking out of their numbers another 20 % to teach and grow another group of people? I've been a member of 2 churches and attended a third OP church and virtually NONE of them had an outreach program and resented anybody who brought up the subject.
I'm going to tell you why. It's because when they get enough people..someone decides they want to pastor and starts a church with their ordinances, laws and bylaws and they want their church to grow to mega size. They don't want people to leave, not even 20% to go out and teach in the inner cities, the highways and the byways and have another fellowship starting, dividing and developing...constantly splitting and reaching out, growing...dividing again, reaching out...growing... you get the picture.
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I understand you are looking at this through a oneness apostolic pentecostal prism. You are correct. OP's have a poor track record overall in personal evangelism. I know of churches outside the OP movement who realize the need to grow molecularly. OP's usually split because of disagreements. Some of the successful ministries I've been involved with or observed have established multiple churches in various locations. Once those churches are established, they run independent of the mother church. Non OP's aren't afraid of growing, splitting, creating new life. I don't know how to correct it in the OP movement. I gave up trying. If I can be encouraging, you don't need the masses to turn the world upside down. Jesus started with twelve.
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You are going by the actions of the Apostles that happened over 2000 years ago...even how the Apostles set up the church system back then, does not even remotely resemble what the organized church system has today. Today's system is...well...just messed up when compared to the early church.
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Today's system is just as messed up from the pew as it is from the pulpit. Many saints abdicate their responsibilities. For example, who do the saints call when someone is sick? The pastor. Who are they supposed to call? James said call the elders. How many board members do you know will go pray for the sick? Why do many elders avoid that responsibility? The Bible guarantees when the elder prays for the sick, the person will recover AND their sins will be forgiven. If you can trust an elder/board member to pray for the sick and get results, you got a board member who is in tuned to the heartbeat of God. Those are the kind of board members I love to work with.
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As for the widows...they were Grecian widows who were neglected in the daily ministrations. The Apostles understood that they cannot do everything, thus delegated the more simpler matters to the brethren to take out 7 men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom to oversee these matters. I honestly doubt that they used 'scientific observations of a 80/20 principle' to ensure this to happen. They just used good common sense.
The Apostles were outreaching with the preaching of the gospel of Christ and delegated the more physically necessary matters to honest holy ghost filled men. We don't even get that type of outreach today. Everyone is shut up into their own little box. Many pastors do not want to delegate some of the responsibilities to other Holy Ghost men and women.
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In one post, you take an issue with spending time to train people to do the work of the ministry, then you take issue that pastors don't want to delegate.
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Tva1, are you just another person who wants to use mathematical and scientific methods or gimmicks to "reach people" for Christ?
Christ don't need 80/20 principle of some man to reach the people. Neither does man who truly believes in the power of the blood. In fact, I think man uses whatever gimmick he can find to catch people's attention instead of just preaching the gospel of Christ and the Cross. You can blather all you want on the issue of 80/20 rule and I bet it will net you far less than your expectations, but the love of God and the blood of Christ from the cross will be God's only acceptable way to reach people. All of this nonsense came up because I am appalled at your use of derogatory terms for human beings that either fell upon hard times or play the system. Even those who play the system need educating how wrong it is to do so if they are able bodied. Godly influence in their life can convict a soul into themselves wanting to do better.
Now you are adding the rule to the tithe paying, which is just another OT law you and many others dug up so you can have a steady paycheck. Pitiful!
Go ahead and preach to your 20 percent and call other people derogatory names, like you have already done in this thread. Your posts indicate that you lack love for your fellow man. You talk about discipleship...but what does Christ say about true discipleship?
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
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John 13:35)
Good luck with your gimmicks because you are going to need them.
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I think I understand your misconceptions. That's because you have taken nearly everything I said out of context. That shows how weak your argument is.
The trailer park trash webcam prophet comment was referring to people who think it's their God given right to point out the weaknesses in other people on the internet when there is no scriptural authority. I gave specific examples. You twisted it around to suggest I was talking about the saints on the pew. I let that slide for a while.
I said the 80/20 rule was evident in some fashion in the examples I listed. I don't have to be aware of the law of gravity to know gravity exists. You seem to believe that the people involved in the examples I listed had the 80/20 rule in mind. I doubt they did, but it is obvious the principle played out successfully. It is without question, the 80/20 rule was used, even if people were unaware it was happening.
Do you know the difference between discipleship and evangelism? Two different things. Evangelism is when you get a person converted to your brand of christianity. Discipleship is teaching a person to be like Christ. I don't know how much clearer I can make it.
It appears you are deliberately twisting words and definitions. An obvious manipulation is when I said tithing is an example how the percentage stays the same, but the actual number changes. You blasted an inaccurate statement stating I was using tithing principle to collect a paycheck. A deliberate, inaccurate misrepresentation of my point. Anyone reading what I wrote would not come up to that conclusion.
If I appear condescending, it's because I gave you the benefit of the doubt. It appears your perception of what's said is different than what is said. Your problem is in your perception.
I never said the 80/20 rule was an outreach tool. I did say you teach the 20% who want to be effective in discipleship to teach the 80%. Part of discipleship is evangelism.
I never said the pastor should ignore the 80%. You pulled a quote off Wikipedia to accuse me of ignoring the other 80%.
Making up things then jumping to faulty conclusions on the fabrications shows how weak your argument is.
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As far as Memphis is concerned, you do not know who the people in my circle are. If I were sticking my nose in the Memphis mess, I would be over there in that church system digging up dirt to tell. There is a big difference between doing that and posting my opinion, which I do have a right to do.
Why? Because I have a very close loved one who moved to Memphis and is looking for a OP church to visit and maybe regularly attend. It would be unacceptable for my loved one to walk into that "Memphis mess". So yes, it is my concern because I do not want my loved one walking into that type of unstable and unbiblical situation that might shape what my loved one views about oneness pentecostal churches.
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People have the right to kill unborn babies, but that doesn't make it morally right. The Bible says gossip is murder.
How is voicing you opinion on AFF going to help your "close loved one" decide which OP church to attend? I doubt your close loved one visit this forum. If they do, they already know how warped OP can be. If your close loved one doesn't check out your comments on AFF it's a moot point. Then all you have to do is suggest other OP churches. If you don't plan to spill the beans to the close loved one, there is no need to continue to encourage the bloodshed with fellow believers.
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