THE PLAN ---------------------------- Feedback Box:

What "one man can do", meaning you even if you must begin working alone, to lead your city into Revival. Biblical encourgement that such a goal is God's Will, how to change your personality to make your efforts victorious, Biblical perspectives of what Revival might look like, specific strategies you can take to get there

Introduction

"Where there is no vision, the people perish". Proverbs 29:18

If you are torn by frustration at the spectacle of a godly nation tottering to hell, led by some of your own loved ones, with nothing you think you can do, raise your hands.

OK, you, you, and you, etc., with your hands in your pockets, go away. You will just be bored, hanging around with a bunch of old sourpusses. Go chew on some bubblegum or watch a feel-good re-run or something.

Are they all gone? Good. Now for the rest of you: I have a message of hope.

We can win.

We will win. God will answer my prayer, and your prayer. I have a plan. Um, yes? You, flipping the gospel tract and looking at me with shock, what is it?

"Aw, Dave, you can't say that. Don't you know 2 Timothy 3:13 says we're going to lose? It says "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." What are you trying to do, defeat God's will?"

No, sir. The plan I speak of is God's plan. It's right out of the Bible. And it is true, even if 2 Timothy 3:13 is true too.

But let's look at that verse. It's not even talking about our time, although it may state a principle which applies to all times. Verse 11 is set in Paul's time. Verse 14 is set in Timothy's time.

2 Timothy 3:11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. 14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;

In other words, Paul more surely applied verse 13 to his time, than to ours. And yet, didn't Paul see victory, even in his wicked time? Then even if the wicked "shall wax worse and worse" today, too, I guess we can pray for victory today too, can't we?

Romans 1 describes the slide to Hell, from the top all the way to the bottom. This indicates the progressive nature of wickedness exists in all times. Other passages say godliness is progressive, too.

"Look Dave, you can't get away with twisting the Scriptures into offering us hope. Just look at all the bad things that happen in Revelation. Wickedness gets worse and worse. And obviously we are in those times now. The radio says so. So you had just better believe God, and give up hope."

No, really. Even if the Bible did specify that wickedness in 1999 would get worse and worse, it also says that in every age, the good get better and better, which of course balances the wicked. Even Job, and that was a long time ago, describes godliness as progressive.

Job 17:9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands [Heb: he whose strength is his righteousness] shall be stronger and stronger.

Proverbs likewise talks as if this is still the way people are in every generation.

Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

The Hebrew words describe the light of dawn growing brighter and brighter as the day becomes "established".

Now here is a strange verse in Revelation: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still."
Huh? Is God saying He wants the unjust to not repent? Is God decreeing that the deadline for repentance has passed?

"Eti" is the Greek word translated "still". It can either refer to continuation, in time, through the present; or to an increase in degree or magnitude: that is, "let him become more unjust". (Hebrews 11:36 is an example of where "eti" is translated as an increase of magnitude. There it is translated, in the KJV, "moreover".)

Not that there is anything inaccurate about the KJV translation. Either translation would be accurate. But if there is a spiritual truth elsewhere in the Bible consistent with "let the unjust remain unjust", I can't think where it would be. Or what the phrase would even mean. But if God meant Relation 22:11 to refer to increasing degree, not duration in time, that would make it consistent with the verses previously reprinted. Verses 22:11 would then translate:

Let the unjust become more so. Let the filthy become filthier. Let the righteous become more so. Let the holy become holier.

"But", you say, "verse 10 says the time is at hand. In other words, people are going to get stuck they way they are because there won't be time to change."

Well, that is possible. But the angel told John "the time is at hand", 100 generations ago. There has been plenty of time for plenty of people to change, since then.

And look at Jesus' description of the end. Yes, iniquity will increase. But what else happens? Many, but not all, lose their love. But others endure! And look what those who endure DO! THEY REACH THE WHOLE WORLD WITH THE GOSPEL! Does that sound like just a couple dozen survive? They are so committed, and they are so numerous, that they will achieve what no other generation of Christians has ever yet achieved! That's the kind of tidal wave of victory I want to be riding!

Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

"I'm outa here! I'm not going to listen to someone going around telling people to have hope! And challenging the King James Version to boot!"

Hey, wait! Don't go off mad! I'm sorry! I didn't really mean it! Er, well I guess God did, though. If you don't agree with my take on "eti" no biggie. My point is made with the other verses. Mister? Mister!

See what I'm up against, folks? I try to encourage people, give them hope, tell them about God's promises to answer their prayers, especially their prayers for the wonderful things, like revival; and what do people do? They get really, really upset with me, and interrupt me, to try to get me to stop. And they try to stop me with Scripture!

And look what that forces me to do. I started out to write a short little one page article. But I made the mistake of talking to people about my subject. And they immediately proceeded to fill my head full of excuses for doubt and despair. So what could I do? I had to address all those excuses. Because I know they are excuses shared by many, and if I don't address them, my readers will still believe them and will throw away The Plan, and spurn the hope I offer, which, really, God offers. And now look how long my article is! On second thought, don't look. I don't want any fainting spells. I'm behind on my Medical Liability. Just take it one word at a time. We'll get through this.

I haven't even had a chance yet to start telling how the plan works. Just as soon as I breathe a hint of confidence that any plan, whose goal is even slightly wonderful, might work, all of a sudden I have to drag out my Greek books to justify confidence that any plan might actually work.

Not that it's controversial to pray for revival. What makes it controversial is to believe God will answer our prayer. Well, it's cool to pray for a "revivalette", a baby revival that just brings a couple of dozen new souls to a tent meeting. But national revival? Wholesale repentance, and turning of America back to God? No way. This is the last days. Things are just going to get worse. Hope for that much revival is rebellion against God.

The other thing that makes The Plan controversial is the very idea that there are common sense things men can do whose logical result is revival. "Don't you know only God can change hearts?" But the things The Plan requires us to do are things God's Word says must be done. If we haven't obeyed God, and now we do, doesn't logic suggest our actions now will much more likely lead to revival?

For you sitting there waiting impatiently for the details of the plan, wondering how much longer I am going to string you along, I must tell you, you are in the minority. Had I begun this article with the details of The Plan, everyone's eyes would have just glazed over. The stuff is so common sense it will put you to sleep. You've already heard most of it. You've already heard preachers, radio talk show hosts, and fellow Christian activists shake their heads and complain about all the wonderful things "WE" could do if "THE CHURCH" would just "wake up". (Try reversing the order of "the church" and "we" and see if that suggests anything.)

No, it is not the details of The Plan which need to be sold. It is its goal. (Victory; or, Revival.) The Goal is the thing people want to believe, but are afraid to. The Goal is the part people argue about. The Goal is the interesting part. It belongs first in the article.

In fact, the first Detail of The Plan which must be implemented is to "take a stand" for its Goal. That is, for all you "Planners" to publicly proclaim, that is, tell everyone you know, that Revival is a Biblical goal after all, and that you are not only going to pray for it, but you are going to believe God will answer! And not only that, but you are such a wild-eyed fanatic that you are not only going to pray for revival, and believe God will answer, but you are going to work your petootie off for Revival!

Uh, yes?

"Dave, I've been sitting here, real polite. But now don't you think you are just being a tad egotistical, to think you can speak for God, telling us what He wants to happen, and wants us to do?"

Now hold on, here. I will never ask anyone to believe anything I say just because I say I represent God. I will quote Scriptures to support what I say God says, and they are what you need to believe. Them, and my logic which I try to base on Scripture, if you can follow it.

I assure you, I am fully aware that if your faith in The Plan rested even in any small measure upon your faith in me, you are going to be absolutely useless in implementing The Plan. Because in order to help, you are going to need to persuade many others about what God says, others who would turn away from you in an instant if they thought your own theology was based even partly in blind faith in me. So get out of your head, right now, any thought of skimming through this article and just going along with my conclusions because you like me or trust me.

As for me, I don't believe we will win because of what I can accomplish. I believe we will win because of what I have prayed, and because of God's promises, qualified though they may be, to answer my prayers. And your prayers, which would be essentially the same as mine, if you weren't so afraid to pray with faith.

No Magic. Just Work.

Not only have I prayed and believed, but I have seen a glimpse of the victory. I have seen not only what victory might look like, but what part you and I can play to make it happen. I have even seen details. I have worked numbers. The plan would be realistic, even if it had no greater support behind it than mere human talent and commitment and hard work. The Plan doesn't even require an appearance of miraculous divine intervention to appear realistic. (Although without miraculous divine intervention, the miracle of life itself would cease.) All it requires is a very, very small number of dedicated Christians willing to apply themselves to it.

But I have learned, through 13 years of publishing and presenting The Plan, and 20 years of talking about it, that this, the finding of a very, very small number of dedicated Christians willing to apply themselves to it, is what requires God's dramatic miraculous intervention.

God really did give me this miraculous plan. How do I know? Because I really do "sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done" among my people. (Ezekiel 8-9, especially 9:4) You all know that, if you know me at all. I'm really quite a sourpuss. I'm always complaining about what others won't do. I depress people. You've known all along it would take a miracle just for me to say I am happy.

And yet, now that I see The Plan in all its completeness, capable of toppling theological excuses (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) and scheming end-runs around apathy (Revelation 3:16) and cowardice, I am as happy, as full of joy, as enthusiastic, as I have been in years! That is a miracle I cannot deny. Of course you can deny it, until you get to the end of The Plan and see what it does for you. That is where God's miraculous intervention comes in. All I can give you are sheets of paper with ink on them. God can light them on fire inside your soul. I pray God will light in you the same fire He gave me.

Not that I am ignorant that it would take as great a miracle to light that fire in you, as it took for me. So what if I can present a plan which is no more than God's plan, clearly laid out in Scripture, but which God's people have neglected and forgotten? Once I present it, does that mean all my readers, or even a few, or even those who have been close to me and trusted me, will just automatically jump up and say "Wow! Thanks Dave! Now I know what to do with the rest of my life!"? No, I don't think so. There are other things far more important at the moment. Memorizing football stats. Going on vacations. Buying newer cars. The leeks and onions are good. Numbers 11:5.

Numbers 11:4 And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? 5 We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: 6 But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes. 7 And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium. 8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. 9 And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it. 10 Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased. 11 And Moses said unto the LORD, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? 12 Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers? 13 Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. 14 I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.

Planners, don't turn back. Onions aren't that good. And leeks are awful enough just to say, before we even come to the thought of trying one. The Plan requires commitment.

Moses' Plan and The Plan, Israel and America

Moses had a plan, too. Would a Prince, the son of Pharaoh's daughter, Exodus 2:10, kill an Egyptian soldier for the benefit of a slave, if he didn't have a plan?

Moses surely thought, as he killed the Egyptian, "My people have been crying to God to send them a deliverer since before I was born, and look how God has prepared me! I know troop positions, sympathetic officers, secret underground passages, passwords to weapons stockpiles, and every military strategy! And my people know I know all these things! With the element of surprise, we could take this place with hardly an arrow shot! When my people see a Prince of Egypt on their side, they will praise God for answering their prayers, spread the word, and raise an army by the end of the week!"

Boy, was Moses naive!

Israel wasn't ready for freedom. They reacted to Moses' plan with resentment and petty jealousy. So Moses fled, knowing there was no will in his people to resist Pharaoh.

I can relate to that. Can't you?

(For you nay-sayers who think Moses acted from Self, instead of listening to God who surely would have never told Moses to do anything violent, or to break the law, or to do anything deceitfully, Exodus 2:12, look up Hebrews 11:24-27, and tell me, what other action but this do these verses refer to, as that action of Moses which qualified him for the "Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith"? Even Moses' deceit is praised, v. 27!)

God knew they weren't ready, too; God waited another 40 years before bothering Moses with the wake-up call, that FINALLY, Israel was ready.

It turned out God was right: even after the 40 years, they were just barely ready. They grumbled, doubted, and nearly threw Moses out before they even crossed the border. Even after they were free, they still weren't ready for the Promised Land. They had to wait another 40 years for that.

There were two things that held up Israel's deliverance for 400 years from Abraham's time (actually about 160 years of slavery): (Genesis 15:13)

(1) Israel's pain had to become greater than her doubt, to give her spiritual maturity enough to trust God; and

(2) "the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full", Genesis 15:16. (In other words, before God could let Israel sweep over the Promised Land in military power, taking no prisoners, God had to wait until every last possible soul of every last Canaanite nation had been saved, leaving nothing but hard-hearted, disease-ridden husks.)

God is love. Suffering is part of His plan to bring us glorious victory. And yet we need not expect to be victorious over our enemies until God has given them every last opportunity to march with Him and us.

I was as ignorant as Moses. Maybe you have been, too.

20 years ago I was divorced. In my grief and despair, the Lord showed me ways to change divorce law that would reduce divorce. Excited, I thought all I had to do was tell a pastor, and he would be so excited he would tell all the pastors he knew, and they would tell all their congregations, and they would all call their legislators, and the law would be changed by the end of the month, and divorce would start dropping!

But the first pastor I called interrupted me in the middle of my second sentence to ask, "What church do you go to?" My answer was a church I thought similar to his, but he said, "I don't believe the way they do. I don't think we have anything to talk about. (Click)"

Moses' plan was heralded in Hebrews, even though at the time, for 40 years, he looked like a failure. Oh, sure, the shepherds thought he was a great shepherd. But no one thought he made a very effective national savior.

Moses had to wait 40 years before God was ready to answer Moses' prayer beyond his wildest dreams. But by that time Moses had the wind so knocked out of him, and after all he was an old man, 80 years old, that he tried to talk God out of him being any kind of leader.

How long have you waited to set people free who only turned on you?

I have only waited 20 years for God to answer my prayer. (Although in 1996, Iowa divorce law got a little break. The legislator spearheading the changes welcomed my suggestions for more profound changes, but finally had to dump a lot of hard work -- his as well as mine -- because of grassroots apathy.)

I, like Moses, originally set out on the strength of my own reasoning, and was unprepared for its rejection. I, unlike Moses, am still proceeding without any Burning Bush, although I do have more of the fiery Word of God. Jeremiah 5:14, 20:9, 23:29.

Moses had to wait, but he saw his plan enacted. In his days! Not because Moses was anything special -- that hope is for us, too: Psalm 91:8, Psalm 37:34, Psalm 58:10-11, Psalm 92:11, Malachi 1:5.

Moses originally only dreamed of setting Israel free. He saw that, and lived 40 more years, to see, with his own eyes, God's dream for Israel: the Promised Land. And before Moses died, he had God's promise that his people would enter! Despite his own sins! Sin always has consequences. But if the consequence of sin was that our prayers would not be answered, God would never answer prayers!

Is this melomania, for me to make even a slight comparison between my Plan and Moses' plan? It might be, if it were my plan. Just because I have a plan, doesn't mean it belongs to me. It is God's plan. It is right there in the Bible. If I misrepresent some of the details, you can go right to the source, bypass my mistakes, and get it perfect.
Moses' Plan was God's Plan. Everyone who commits to God's plan is liable to experience pretty much the same thing Moses experienced.

I don't care how soon God allows Antichrist to reveal himself, God's plan is guaranteed to work. And if Christians implement it in time, Antichrist is simply going to have to wait for a more apathetic generation, or settle for a less triumphant Last Stand. Because when this plan goes into action, tyranny cannot survive. Oh, tyrants can brag and threaten, but when God's people are even half awake, tyrants just look ridiculous, Psalm 2.

So here is the miracle I pray for, and please, as many readers as will, pray with me: that the long years of waiting are over. That every last excuse not to act has been discovered and answered. That now God's people have been slaves long enough; now they, including you, are ready to believe God and march to freedom with me.

Not in my wake. With me. I don't even want to be a leader like Moses, although of course I realize Moses didn't either. I want others to march faster than me so they will be in the lead. But if no one does, I am not going to slow down just to let others lead. The important thing is to get there.

Will you act? Not just you who have "that particular Holy Spirit Gift". This Gift is like the "Gift" of singing. Some are especially "gifted". But the church needs everyone singing.

If you are not on board this plan, you are standing in the way. I pray you will get on board. Now. That there will be no more delay. There seems little more time for delay.

Personality Repair Kit

Sorry, but the time has come that I have to get personal.

I would like to just tell you the Five Steps to The Plan and be done with it, but there is one more thing standing in the way: your personality. Until we can get that changed, I might as well present the details of The Plan to a swarm of bees. I would feel better afterward.

There are two extremes of personalities we must avoid in order to be useful in The Plan. The balance between them is achieved by following God's two "greatest commandments": to love God, and to love our "neighbor" as ourselves. Matthew 22:36-40.

One extreme is to love our Neighbor but not to particularly think very much about God. Such people are popular. They remember names, faces, and birthdays. They always smile. They are happy and enthusiastic. To watch them interact with others, you would think they have no enemies and many friends. Even wicked people love them, because it is hard to dislike someone who likes you. Matthew 5:46-47. About the only folks who don't enjoy them that much are thinking people. And that, not because they are evil or anything, but just shallow. Uninteresting.

The other extreme to avoid is someone who loves God but is always blaming his neighbor. You say, "How is that possible? To the extent one loves God, one will surely obey God, and the first commandment we are taught is to love our neighbor!"
Theoretically, yes. But in practice, many of us love God but don't believe God. Specifically, we don't believe God will answer our prayers. Specifically, we don't believe God will answer our most selfless prayers, which are for revival.

Because we love God, we hate sin, so we "sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done", Ezekiel 9:4.

But because we have no faith, we have nothing to balance our concern. We have no hope. No joy. We are depressed, and depressing. No one wants to be around us, because we are just a bunch of old sourpusses, complaining about how everybody else in the world, besides ourselves, isn't doing anything. Well, of course everybody is busy, but hardly anybody is doing anything that makes a difference.

We moan, "Oh, if only THE CHURCH would _____! If only PASTORS would ________!" Of course our own wheels are spinning too, but we aren't the problem. We are very busy, doing everything we can think of to make a difference. It's just that none of the things we are doing, are. Not through any fault of our own: we are doing everything humanly possible. Surely. It's everybody else. They aren't helping us. They aren't following us.

It's not as if we need revival. WE know Jesus. WE are going to Heaven. WE know how to turn to the bosom of Jesus for consolation and comfort, when the pressures of being continually depressed are too much for us. WE know revival is for others, not ourselves.

Do you see how FAITH is just the medicine we need? With FAITH, we are not impatient with sinners (the general "they" who won't do ____), because we have a PLAN which will reconcile them! (That is, the general "them" which troubles us, as opposed to any specific sinner. Our plan will bring revival in general, although not every last sinner will repent.)

If we have FAITH when we pray for an end to all the abominations over which we cry and sigh, then our joy is even more intense than our depression!

When we have a Plan which we BELIEVE will make right every wrong which has so depressed us, we will be bubbling over with ENTHUSIASM as we perform it!

When we have ENTHUSIASM, we will be popular! People will enjoy our company! People will follow us! Or rather, in our case, we will all follow God together. In some details we will lead, in others we will follow.

But your faith must be in God, not this article. As I said, because of my own experience with God's joy, I personally regard this article as a miraculous gift of God. But surely there will be details of it which you do not understand or cannot accept. And without those details, The Plan may not seem effective to you. So you will fall again into misery, without faith, complaining about all your Neighbors who, if they would just ____, but they won't. Loving God, but too exasperated with your Neighbor to feel anything positive towards him.

But if your faith is in God, then this article only needs to seem partially sound, to you, to cure your doubt. Because if you even think there is a little truth in it, that there is A Plan somewhere in the direction in which this article points, then you will have hope! For details you don't understand or consider unsound, you will seek God's instruction (John 14:26) with faith, so long as you really believe there is, indeed, an answer somewhere, anywhere, waiting for you.

But now that I have pinpointed the problems with your personality, how may we repair it?

Fortunately, Christians usually can be cured of a sin merely by having it exposed. Christians don't sin deliberately for very long.

You realize, don't you, that my style of writing, where I pick on you as if I myself am above the errors to which you stoop, is just me trying to make this entertaining? I mean, you realize I am kidding, don't you? You realize that I realize I am guilty of the same sins, don't you? In fact, you realize, don't you, that I realize I am so guilty of the same sins, that is why I can analyze them with such eloquence?

A little boy learning the trumpet convicted me. I give him lessons. He has this aggravating habit of playing a handful of notes, and then launching into this long complicated analysis of why this one pattern of notes is hard for him, more so than some other pattern of notes. Far more of the lesson is squandered in his talking, than in his doing.

In exasperation I finally told him, "You talk WAY too much. Just DO it."

(I didn't mean talking, per se, was his offense; but rather, producing an elaborate inventory of excuses for failure.)

Immediately the Lord showed me how that is precisely the problem that has encumbered my contribution to The Plan all these years. Too much time analyzing and blaming every other contributor to failure besides myself, and too little "just DOING it"!

There is one more problem we need to repair in "your" personality before you are ready for the details of The Plan.

If we let your personality go unrepaired, you will only look at the details of The Plan and say either "This is too hard; I don't have that talent; someone else must do it", or "This is too easy; too routine, too menial, too boring. I need something that will make use of my talent. Let someone else do it!"

In order to repair your personality so that you will not be overwhelmed by The Plan and give up before you start, reread the Parable of the Ten Talents in Matthew 25. Remind yourself that its lesson is that while we are here on Earth, God expects us to double the talents He starts us with. If we don't, what happens to us? Reread Moses' argument with God, Exodus 4, where Moses tells God, "I can't speak for you to these people. I stutter." God answered, "Who makes mouths?" This is not just encouragement. This is a command. It is not just a command: it is a warning. A threat. But a threat which logically proceeds from the sweetest love. If, on Earth, you cannot trust God to provide you the talent and resources to be victorious over those evils which most oppress you, is Heaven really the place for you? Will you enjoy cuddling up to God for all eternity when nothing threatens, if you won't even lean on Him for shelter from what most oppresses you here?

Consider these lessons and be not faithless, but believing. John 20:27.

In order to repair that part of your personality which will cause you to look at certain details of this plan and say "this is too menial; I must use my talents; let others do this", please consider, as you read the following verses, how inconsistent it is to say, when a menial job opens up, "I want a job that will stretch my mind; that will be more of a challenge; a job where I can grow, and develop my talents", and then later to say, when a demanding job is offered, "I don't want to be a workaholic. I must spend time (watching TV) with my family. I must include recreation in my schedule and budget. I must have time to ENJOY life. I cannot work so hard that I forget why I am working."

When you say "I must stretch myself; I must use my talents", examine your heart to be sure you do not mean "I need an activity which can best show the world how talented I am, without requiring too much work."

Most such talk is designed to "whitewash" our worldly desire for the easiest work, for the most pay, and the greatest recognition.

When you say "I must maximize my talents; I must develop those talents which are the most unique, the most specialized, and by all means the most impressive", be careful you do not lose sight of those actions which will most effectively achieve the results you most want!

All activity requires talent! The more menial require the more patience and endurance. By what standard do you say this talent is more unique, specialized, or impressive than that talent? If the skill which most distinguishes you from The Common People is sharpshooting, does God want you to hire on as a hit man so you can stretch yourself? Will that accomplish those results you most yearn to accomplish?

God doesn't put talents in a pecking order. 1 Corinthians 12 eloquently shows how a Christian Fellowship equally requires each and every talent. Ecclesiastes explains why an individual should be grateful to use any talent he can, while he still can.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

As for recognition, Jesus warns us not to be obsessed with the "chief seats", that is, the most comfortable chairs in the church, which are located up on the platform behind the preacher, Matthew 23:5-12.

As for job satisfaction, God clearly tells us it is equally available under any circumstances, Philippians 4:11. 1 Corinthians 7:20-24 says this is even true for slaves. Even if you are a slave, and have to do THAT kind of work, even then, you should do it with all your heart! 1 Peter 2:18. How much more when you are a free man doing the work of God! How can any such work be unworthy of you?

Verse 3, following, says "others' esteem" is better than "self esteem". Verse 4 says we should not be proud of our own talents, but of everyone's talents. Our concern should not stop with our own peace and prosperity, but with everyone's.

Philippians 2:2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Who are we doing this for? Who does revival benefit? Let us not choose which talents to employ on the basis of how their employment benefits us, but on the basis of which talents are most needed by others.

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ", Galatians 6:2.

Did we not say "If THE CHURCH would just ________! If PASTORS would just _______! But no, they think only of their own comfort!" Yet now we come to something WE must do, and shall our thinking, about whether or not to do it, be determined by our own comfort?

Are you ready? Is your personality now repaired? Are you prepared to look at each detail of the following plan, and let your willingness to follow it be determined solely by its apparent ability to achieve what you most want to achieve? Are you ready to look at the work ahead without being distracted by whether you think you are able to do it, or whether you are going to be "fulfilled" doing it, or whether you are able to believe God will grant success, or who is to blame for not implementing The Plan long ago?

Are you prepared to study The Plan, determine what ought to be done, and then, without a lot of analysis, blame, or excuses, just do it?

Actually my assumption is that you are already implementing parts of The Plan. Reading The Plan will give you a greater vision, more ideas how you can do your part better, and greater faith so you can experience joy, enthusiasm, and consequent friendship with those you want to influence. Certainly The Plan will show you a great deal more you could be doing. Do not be ashamed that you have previously done less. Do not be intimidated by the fear that you may be unable to do more.

Just do it.

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

The Plan is massive. It is comprehensive. We can do it, by God's strength.

Although I have stocked this little Personality Repair Kit with a small number of battering rams for barriers to success I have seen, you will need the whole Bible if you are serious about success. This mission field will test your familiarity with and understanding of God's Word. Now, more than ever, you must immerse yourself in it.

But don't pray, about whether to do this, so long that the world ends before you are satisfied you have God's answer. Don't make God prove to you what He wants you to do, before you will lift a finger, by a much higher standard than you use to determine God's Will for your budget, before you will spend a dime!

Don't neglect implementing The Plan until you can first go out and get a Doctor of Theology. Obedience to God, not years of education, is what opens your heart to God's lessons from His Word. Even failure, in your own efforts to serve Him, sharpens your longing to better understand God's Promises.

Are you ready now? If you are ready for The Plan, The Plan is ready for you.

OUTLINE OF THE PLAN

Entire books, available for free on my website, offer more lengthy Scriptural support than you may be willing to digest, explaining each of the following Steps to Revival. Books are not needed to understand the following points, or to see how, upon implementation of these points, America would once again become a Christian nation. The books are needed to refute the unending objections, resistance, and theological-sounding excuses for not believing what the Bible says, or for not obeying it even when it is believed.

The Plan incorporates many human activities which are so perfectly natural and ordinary that you are already doing many of them. If so, The Plan will help you add the rest of a strategy which will turn what you are already doing into a Partnership Machine.

(For readers of the printed version of this article: the book chapters alluded to are available on the website "panews.org". In the web version of this article, these underlined allusions are in a different color which tells readers they can click on the words and go right to the chapters.)

First Step to Revival:

PROCLAIMING THE GOAL OF REVIVAL. LEARN TO PROCLAIM TRUTH, NOT RUMOR. BUILDING YOUR CREDIBILITY.

Persuade everyone you know that Revival is a Biblical goal after all. Pray for it. Believe God will grant it. Work persistently towards it. (Scriptural support for this goal is found in the preceding introduction, for you skimmers.)

Don't use "moral outrage" for entertainment.

Test the truths you proclaim. Let your boldness in proclaiming a truth match its ability to pass every test.

Making sure your information is true wouldn't be so important if you were only going to exhaust your moral outrage where it cannot lead to further action, such as spending it only on those who already agree with you. But to be part of this plan, you will need to lead many others to action, which will be a disaster if your head stays full of rumors. If you think your good intentions can help, without a clear grasp of reality, you might as well be a Democrat. You need, now, to start sharpening your Sword of Truth.

If you follow these principles, your judicious boldness should propel your message far and wide.

Test the truths you proclaim.

When you explain some issue to others upon which you want them to act, the first thing you have to accomplish is for them to believe the stories or facts you present in support of your issue. You need to be ready with "sources", in support of the facts you allege, which your target audience can trust.

For example, if you want to convince a Republican, don't quote from a Green Party fundraising letter. If you want to convince a Democrat, don't quote from the Spotlight. Get in the habit of distinguishing between sources of news for yourself which you can share with those who already agree with you, and sources of evidence you can present to those whose hearts you need to win.

The strongest evidence for those who disagree with you is a quote from their most trusted sources. For example, if you want to prove something to a Mormon, see if you can find evidence in the Book of Mormon. If you want to prove the Communist Chinese intend to attack the U.S., look for a quote from a Chinese leader; ideally, either something published by the leader, or a video of him saying it. If you want to convert an evolutionist, quote scientific sources. Acts 17:28 is an example of presenting evidence "from the horse's mouth", where Paul wanted to prove a key point in his message to Athens, so he quoted from their own poets.

There is a critically important qualification to this principle: just because you need to quote from sources trusted by your audience, that doesn't mean you should not quote from the Bible just because you are talking to atheists. Luke 16:30 says very clearly that there is nothing more persuasive than the Bible, and Jesus said that, when the Old Testament was all there was. Jesus said if people won't believe the plain unadorned Word of God, there is no amount of evidence you can parade before them that will persuade them. However, this doesn't mean to quote the Bible haphazardly, in frustration, using it as an attack dog after you have given up trying to reason through your point. Keep your quotes relevant to the issue.

There are ways you can test news stories.

Pick out details in a newspaper article which you are capable of confirming, by a phone call to a person named in the story, (a "news source"), or by checking alleged facts in reference books.

When you take the trouble to call a News Source, you will virtually always get a different version of the story than the printed version. Sometimes the source will allege minor errors, sometimes deliberate distortion. After you have taken the trouble to make such a call or check facts in other ways, you will be far more qualified to pass on the story to others than your friends who have merely read the printed article.

As you are choosing which details to confirm, choose those which would establish the most serious parts of the story: the parts which made you think, as you read it, "Wow! This shows how wicked these people are!" (for example.)

If the story you want to confirm is a book, look at the footnotes. Cross off the footnotes to other books which are similar to the one you are reading. They are worthless, other than to prove your book is a rehash of other books without any original research.

Look for footnotes to sources which would not deliberately associate themselves with the position of your book. It is very easy for those predisposed to a position to embellish it. But when a detail is conceded by those whose worldview is tarnished by the detail, it is more likely true.

An enemy admitting a fact is more persuasive than a friend bragging about it.

For example, if a "patriot" tabloid said the FBI is able to tap a third of America's phones at once, you should question it, because patriot tabloids grind out headlines like that for breakfast. But if the tabloid cites a Mob Media story, and you look up the story and that's what it really says, it's more likely true. Not that Mob Media are generally more reliable, but they are not fond of reporting the scope of Big Brother intrusion. But if you find the story admitted on the FBI's own website, then it must be true! (This is a fictitious example. Please, no rumors starting here, unless you find something. Actually several years ago I thought I read this allegation in the Des Moines Register, but when I went back to cut it out, I couldn't find it.)

A contrasting example: Suppose the BATF website says they didn't start the fire at Waco, and did everything they could to put it out, including letting the firetrucks past their blockades. Well of course they would say that! Who would take their reassurances seriously? Normally you would expect Mob Media to pick up such a story, and then to also get the obligatory quotes from critics casting a tiny bit of doubt on the BATF story. But if the quotes from critics actually confirm the BATF version, well, that would be a little different. Maybe there is something to it. But now if you read a patriot magazine which agrees with the BATF, it has to be true! Patriots regard government secret agencies as sworn enemies. Patriots won't admit the BATF ever did anything right unless the evidence forces them! (Again, a fictitious example.)

Testing Theologies

If it is a position on Scripture you want to test, simply seek out those who oppose the position. Learn why. Study whether their objections are sound. Try to refute their objections; if you cannot, the position is probably wrong.

Our generation is not accustomed to regarding any of our theologies as tentative. But all theology, all doctrine, outside a word-for-word reading of Scripture, should be regarded as our human understanding, and we should be noble enough to be open to correction from other humans, Acts 17:10-12, 2 Chronicles 35:20-24.

"Playing devil's advocate" is an idiom describing the process of testing an idea by seeing how easily you can pick it apart. "The Scientific Method" may be summarized in a phrase as trying to disprove a theory or statement of fact. If a theory or allegation has some evidence for it, and serious efforts to disprove it have failed, we can be as certain of it as of anything else on this sin-riddled planet.

As you begin proclaiming any issue, present it as only tentatively your position. Because that is what you are actually doing: you are testing whether your position is really true, whether it will withstand scrutiny. When you present it to a well informed, intelligent critic, tell him you want his opinion. You want to know of any Scriptures which refute your position which you have overlooked.

But if he burns your position to the ground, have the courage to evaluate whether he did so with sound, logical application of Scripture; don't just be intimidated because he is more highly respected by the World than you, or even more fluent in the Word of God than you. Study all the Scriptures he quotes, but let it be the Word of God, itself, which guides you.

When those of greater worldly rank than yourself condemn your position, without being able to refute it honestly, your position has just passed another test, and you have a little more assurance that yours is the Message God wants you to give. The more passion there is than logic in their condemnation, the more important to God may be your message.

Your next step, after your message can survive Biblical scrutiny without a direct hit, is to collect all the indirect excuses people think of, and prepare yourself to disarm them.

1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. 13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? 14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; 15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: 16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. 17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. 18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

Do not be guilty, yourself, of dismissing unpopular or uncomfortable allegations without first disproving them.

If you are not noble, like the Bereans, a Paul is likely to come your way and you will foolishly throw him out.

Acts 17:10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

If you make up your mind about an issue before you have heard all the evidence, God says you are foolish and an embarrassment.

Proverbs 18:13 He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

But neither be guilty of sidetracking Christians from real battles to chase rumors you cannot prove.

Do not proclaim what you can't prove.

Satan loves you when you get side tracked on rumors. Even when a story is true, he loves to fill your mind with emotional outrage about the story, before you think it worthy of your time to take a few simple steps to test the reliability of the sources. He loves how foolish it makes you look when you go around spreading unproved rumors. He loves to flush your credibility down the toilet. He loves to sideline you from God's battlefield.

A recent example is the widely circulated story that disease-causing poisons have been added to the "jet trails", the smoke trails in the wake of military jets, which give diseases to everyone on the ground, including, of course, the people preparing the poisons. You can even look at different jet trail patterns and tell which diseases they will cause. A farmer found a cobweb-type substance on his fenceposts after a jet passed over, says a website, took a sample to a lab, and learned it contained all kinds of nasty crud.

Can you prove this, other than by citing a news source which, to the people who challenge you, is as suspect as the story? Have thousands of other fenceposts been found piled high with cobweb-type substances? How about your own? Have you called anyone in a position to know anything about all this? Have you noticed a dramatic drop in life expectancy?

Sure, our government has been guilty in the past of "testing" select groups of people with poisons whose effects were not completely known. Drugs have been tried on the insane. Ground personnel were exposed to excessive radiation at the first atomic bomb explosion, at Los Alamos. But have you considered the likelihood that such a large number of pilots, ground crews, scientists, and bureaucrats would collaborate in a method of known destruction so indiscriminate that it infects themselves and their own families with the same diseases?

These are just examples of the kinds of questions you should think of asking about every issue. You need to play "Devil's Advocate" in order to save yourself from buying into lies, and in order, when a story is true, to prepare yourself for the challenges of critics.

Do not even waste time talking with friends about stories you cannot prove to critics. Please, don't even waste your time reading unverifiable allegations which you have no intention, yourself, of checking out. So much precious time is thus squandered by God's people, and our time is so short! Your attention is desperately needed for truths you can prove. Your passion is needed to motivate people to take action to stop crimes which have already been proven.

Everybody knows, for example, that unborn babies are murdered by abortion. 27 years of prolife education have at least brought America to that level of awareness. How do you expect people, who don't care enough about that to take action, to care about mere disease-carrying jet trails which cannot even be confirmed?

Stop talking about the latest Clinton scandal, or the latest rumor about National Guard troops preparing for martial law to deal with Y2K riots, with such wide, dramatic eyes, as if this latest outrage is what will finally motivate decent Americans to action which 35 million abortions could not generate!

Not that you should censor every news report which can't be proved as irrefutably as can the crime of abortion. But don't slip into the mentality that since abortion isn't enough to arouse a majority of decent Americans to action, Americans will have to be aroused by alleging ever more shocking sins. And since the stories we can confirm don't seem to have enough shock power to arouse Americans, maybe ever more sensational rumors are the answer.

I don't care how many jet trails, Waco fires, Trilateral Commission plots, concentration camps, or UN troop deployments on the Montana-Canada border you can muster, all of them thrown together aren't as shocking as a week's worth of abortions.

(The examples given in these paragraphs are not an attempt to rank issues by importance. The lesson for us is the value of using KNOWN abominations to prick consciences, as opposed to accusations that haven't even been proved.)

And if Joe Six-Pack remains skeptical whether abortions are really legal in the third trimester, don't expect him to buy into government sensors capable of reading, from a block away, the RF signals which the eyes send to the brain, so that agents can see what we are looking at, as well as capable of deciphering (from a block away) the signals that go from our brains to our mouths. (That allegation is in Texe Marrs' book "Project Lucid". RF signals, by the way, are the signals your TV receives.)

Don't use "moral outrage" for entertainment.

Do not proclaim controversial truths just for the purpose of enjoying the shock on people's faces, or for the purpose of wallowing in "moral outrage" together. Don't let wallowing in "moral outrage" become your substitute for action. Do not let your "moral outrage" become a mere source of entertainment for yourself and others.

One way to test whether you are using your "moral outrage" for entertainment rather than as fuel for action is whether you direct it at people, whom you urge to take action upon hearing your words, or comfortable friends, whom you expect to respond to your words as impersonally as if you were talking about a snow storm on the way.

Let your boldness in proclaiming a truth match its ability to pass every test.

When a Truth is relevant to a situation, and when you have studied it enough to prove it to the people you should present it to, don't be ashamed to declare it just because they might not want to face that particular truth. Just because someone doesn't embrace a truth you present doesn't mean you have failed to "prove" it. Many will embrace what you say without even bothering to understand it; when your opponent follows you, they will embrace him too. Nothing is "proved" just because what you say is embraced. If you get the leading opponents of your position to embrace your position, THEN you have the fruit of proving it. But the actual proving of a position is the presentation of evidence and logic which no one can refute, even when you give others every opportunity to disprove you and let them know you sincerely care what they have to say.

If you "take a stand" only for those Biblical truths which everyone accepts, which make no one uncomfortable, you are not "taking a stand". You "take a stand" when you proclaim those Truths which the most people least want to hear, which are usually the Truths they most need.

When they really are true, and you can prove it by Scripture, and no one can refute you, and when you proclaim them boldly, and if indeed they are the truths the most people least want to hear, much attention will be given your message. Little of it accurate, but you will be known far and wide as "controversial".

Were your message flawed, thinking minds would search out your actual message, discern its flaws, confirm the popular prejudice against you, and that would be the end of you. But if thinking minds find little error in your message, they will oppose the popular tide and thus weaken it, and pave the way for more to hear your actual message.

The truths I have discovered to be more offensive to most people than any other truth, yet still Biblically sound, is that whatever action is justified to save a born child from being murdered is justified to save an unborn child. Thus the same action one may justifiably take against a born child's would-be murderer may justifiably be taken against an abortionist.

I didn't plan, or expect, or want, the media storm that followed my statement (which I made by signing a petition). I didn't even want to make the statement. I signed it only because I was asked to, and because I was unable to refute its logic, and because I could not in good conscience shirk a stand for a statement I knew was true, however much I wanted to.

The reaction to such a stand, described above in generalities, is only what I experienced. I experienced the initial devastating media distortions, the fear-driven advice from family, the handful of friends lost because of the news stories, the many more friends who came to me to learn exactly what my positions were whom I never would have otherwise reached, the bulk of my retail customers who could care less, the customers lost because of the awful news story more than replaced by customers fascinated with meeting someone who had actually been on TV, the surprising number of people I never met who tell me they watch our cable TV show and seem happy to say so, the eventual relief on the part of my family after time passed and no permanent injury seemed to have been done.

I suppose not everyone can report, after a media smear, that no harm was done in the long run. But I'll bet everyone who is wrongfully smeared can look back and see that the friendships gained were more than worth the friendships lost.

Scriptural support for the importance of taking a stand for the most "offensive" truths, and for acknowledging the particular truth I stood for as worthy of your stand: see "Family Petition".

Certainly you should not make any issue your stand, before you are able to defend it. You saw all the excuses I had to deal with just to assure you worldwide Revival is a Scriptural goal. Whatever issue you proclaim to people who do not want to face it, you will encounter all manner of excuses.

Second Step to Revival:

NURTURING 1 CORINTHIANS 14 GROUP INTERACTION

(Warning to skimmers: This is Chapter 17 of "God's Cure for Loneliness". This section will be poorly understood without first reading chapter one. Actually it will seem, shall we say, theologically novel. A very condensed overview of the issue is found under "As you pray for Des Moines don't ask too little" on the panews.org home page.) Not only will this section seem unBiblical, if you don't actually study 1 Corinthians 14, but all this work will seem pointless. Indeed, there are a couple of verses in that chapter that promise revival for your whole church if you follow its patterns, but this "Second Step to Revival" doesn't offer a vision of the benefits of the strategies given. For that, tough it through until you get to the "Fifth Step to Revival".)

Gently, patiently begin explaining to people you know that 1 Corinthians 14 represents church services as Bible Discussions, with real interaction between laymen, not lectures with no interaction. But more important than persuading others of this truth is for you to realize this really is what God means by "church", so that you will begin seeking every opportunity for interaction, for real "fellowship", with other Christians. One reason doing is more important than talking is that the most persuasive talk is from experience; therefore, wherever you can, get experience of real fellowship.

(Scriptural support for this goal: see Chapter 1, "God's Cure for Loneliness" Summary of the issue: 1 Corinthians 14 is almost the only Scripture that gives the ingredients of a church service, and it describes a Bible Discussion. It specifically rules out today's concept of a "sermon", a lecture given by only one person, with no opportunity for questions, comments, or corrections! It mandates a free exchange of Biblically-based ideas.

(Biblical Fellowship is not a place where people come and listen to a lecture, with people they barely know, with no vision of impacting the surrounding community: but where people search the Scriptures as a team, edifying, exhorting, and comforting each other, (1 Corinthians 14:3), with people who become intimate, trusted friends, cooperating together in being salt and light to the whole world.)

Don't just talk. Start transforming your church into a 1 Corinthians 14 Church.

You CAN do this because the essence of such interaction is perfectly natural. It is indistinguishable from everyday friendly human behavior. It can no more be prohibited than friendliness.

You can proceed on two levels: informal, (without official church endorsement or cooperation), and formal (with official church participation).

Nothing but your own laziness will interfere with your progress at the informal level. Unfortunately, there is no worldly recognition of your work at the informal level, as there is when your church endorses your vision. In fact, there may be no human recognition that you are even doing any work. People will think you are just naturally friendly. At least you are in little danger of being persecuted, but you have little hope of being honored, either. Do you think you can be patient enough for the Day God recognizes your work?

At the formal level, your ultimate goal is full-blown Bible Discussion as the central feature of the Worship Service. Why? Because that is the vision of 1 Corinthians 14. But you may not see that for a long time. Not to fret. There is plenty of foundation you need to lay first, which may take you a long time.

Meanwhile there are several Baby Steps, towards 1 Corinthians 14 Interaction, which you can ask your church officers to permit. They are very mild. They should not be seen as very controversial. Many of them will surely be permitted.

Informal Interaction

Encourage whatever interaction you can through the normal course of ordinary friendships, through whatever opportunities are available: from formal meetings, to informal picnics, to two or three friends at a time visiting as they pass one another in a hall.

(This stuff is so ordinary, that friendly people are going to read much of this and wonder what's the point? There are a couple of reasons to "state the obvious", to articulate everyday details that people already do routinely: (1) for the sake of people to whom these details are not second nature, and (2) as a check list of all the opportunities we all have for nurturing Biblical interaction. (3) Sometimes friendliness operates just a little differently, when we do it by Biblical principles.)

Learn the interests of your friends. Encourage them to share information about their interests. Help them find the right medium for sharing it.

For example, invitations to a home picnic, Tupperware party, prolife meeting, etc., could be sent on postcards. A video could be shown to a group meeting at a picnic, or passed from person to person. Articles could be mailed, or passed out in person.

The interaction you most want to encourage is not just any old get-together over any old frivolous subject. The Bible shows us the proper focus of a Fellowship. Actually the Bible's list is so broad, so general, that almost any subject could be shared, with a Biblical spirit.

The list includes plain old Bible study and discussion. But Biblical Fellowship includes so many other facets of human interaction that I will give so many other examples, that you may forget that Bible discussion is OK, too. Yes, Bible discussion is OK. It is the only activity which 1 Corinthians 14 says all should, ideally, do.

God's list of the Gifts of the Spirit suggest a wide variety of subjects which our friends should be free to communicate to each other through our meetings, mailings, and phone trees.

Wisdom (1 Cor 12:8; includes "common sense", clear reasoning, logic, etc., ability to reach sound conclusions from available facts)

Knowledge (v. 8, includes what the world calls "education")

Faith (v. 9; includes ability to aim high; to set great goals)

Healing (v. 9, includes modern medical talents as well as power through prayer)

Miracles (v. 10, includes remembering what God has already done in your life and giving Him credit, Exodus 13:3, Deut 4:9, 5:15, 7:18, 8:2, 9:7, etc)

Prophecy (preaching; edification, exhortation, comfort, 1 Cor 14:3)

Discernment (includes researcher, to confirm or discredit dramatic claims)

Translating (v. 10, the ability to communicate with foreigners; see Appendix 7, Chapter 1 of "God's Cure for Loneliness" for my analysis of this gift)

Helps (v. 28. "helps" includes the variety of service we call "social work")

Governments (v. 28; "Governments" is traditionally relegated to "church government". But its Greek word Gubernaysis, "steering a ship", has come into English as "gubernatorial", referring to a political race for state governor; and it is a synonym of the word translated "authorities", in Romans 13:1, which is traditionally assumed to mean political authorities).

Besides the wide variety of "gifts" which God says should be allowed to operate freely in our Fellowships, several verbs are specifically given to describe how we should interact with one another during Fellowship assemblies:

Edifying,

Exhorting,

Comforting, (1 Cor 14:3),

Provoking one another unto love,

Provoking one another unto good works (Hebrews 10:24).

Interaction in a Biblical fellowship will include economic interaction, Acts 2:44, 4:32. (For meditations on this subject, see Chapter 12, "God's Cure for Loneliness".)

"But how do I tell people to stick to these subjects, if the so-called "information network" is just a bunch of informal friendships without any formal structure or rules?" you ask.

In every friendship, the first thing friends do is discern the range of each other's interests. Respect for those limits is what makes friendship possible. Simply let the range of your interests conform to Scripture.

If two others of your friends want to get together over some non-Biblical interest, while you are not with them, let them.

Of course, all the while you are developing an informal interaction network, you are also pressing for formal participation by your church (details in next section); in this effort you are explaining your vision in detail to all who will listen with an open heart. So you will have some opportunity to explain, to the interested few, what God says about Fellowship guideposts. (You are not doing anything behind anyone's back, but you realize most people don't care to know all you know.)

Sometimes it is necessary for a group to tell a person who is talking (or writing, if there is a forum for writing) to stop. Chapter 12 of "God's Cure for Loneliness" attempts to list some of these situations, and Biblical principles for controlling them. When someone persists, after the entire group has asked the person to stop harassing them, you should even restrict that person's access to the information network.

The following passage infers this, and also that a test of whether a theological discussion is helpful or irrelevant is whether it affects how we live. (See Chapter 12, "God's Cure for Loneliness", for analysis.)


Titus 3:8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. 9 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. 10 A man that is an heretick (Gr: who is divisive) after the first and second admonition reject; 11 Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.

Are you overwhelmed yet? I am. There is absolutely no limit to your opportunity to create a New Testament Fellowship within the husk of your old church. But likewise, there seems no limit to the amount of wisdom and Biblical understanding which would be very helpful to have to moderate the interaction that develops! Are you ashamed, yet, because you have not thought of these things before, and now you see you have wasted so many lost opportunities? I am.

How freely should your communication network operate? In most churches you will not be stopped for sending a single mailing to church members, but you will be stopped if you stand at the door and pass out fliers, or put fliers on cars. (That is, until your activity receives the official sanction of the church administration.)

Between these extremes you need discernment. The "rules" that govern such things are usually ad hoc. That is, made up as people go along. They are usually made up on the basis of impressions of what other people will think. The primary objective is not to "offend" anybody. In politics, precisely the same process is described as "holding your finger up to the wind" (to calculate which way the winds of public opinion are blowing before taking a position). Don't let the hypocrisy get to you. Just keep sharing the Gospel, and that will change the direction of the wind.

As you ask advice of people, discern the personalities of those you ask. For example, you want to announce an event. You ask a cowardly personality if that would be OK. He says you may not announce it, even though he has never thought about it before and has no idea whether it would be a good idea, but he worries that it MIGHT offend Mrs. DoLittle. But if you just get up and make the same announcement, without asking anybody first, the coward will look around nervously, see he is the only one who is nervous, and smile broadly, and thank you for sharing that information.

But not everybody is a coward. Find those whose advice you can trust, in order to create the widest possible information stream by the least provocative means.

Not that you must do everything while you look over your shoulder to see if someone disapproves. Not that you should back down every single time you are challenged. After all, you are doing all this labor in obedience to Scripture. Teach your challengers from the Scriptures. Let them know it is not you they would restrict, but God.

Nevertheless, minimize your battles. Proverbs 25:8, 17:14, Matthew 17:27.

Don't put out mailings (examples: invitations, announcements, information) without followup phone calls or face-to-face followup, so you can sense how the information was received, and whether there is any objection to receiving more information.

Minimize your need to hand literature or tapes to others on church premises. When you do distribute, catch people as they are leaving rather than as they are arriving, so they don't have to be seen carrying it all morning, reminding everybody that you are passing out literature during church. Find other ways to deliver information rather than at church: mail it, or visit them at their homes or at work. That gives it the more personal touch, anyway.

You may ask the church administration, but don't pressure them, for their endorsement of any of your communications, even though use of their information network would save you a lot of money, and their endorsement would help many take you seriously. Their myopia may cost you precious dollars, but your money will be well spent.

Premature endorsement by your church administration would actually be counterproductive. It will offend many members who will then leave. On the other hand, whatever information network you can create without church endorsement will not offend anybody, so nobody will leave; and meanwhile you are free, without the restrictions you could expect from an "offense-driven" administration, to create a quality network of riveting, useful information which will eventually gain the respect of enough members that the church administration will ask you if they might be part of it!

Your goal is to gradually increase the flow of information. Telephone Trees and postcards are examples of means of communication which can't handle any more than about a paragraph. And the means of communication available to you will probably be even less formal than that, at first. But your goal is increasing interaction and Fellowship, to the point where sharing of entire articles and tapes with an increasing circle of friends will seem natural.

Your goal is NOT to make everybody agree to a uniform position before they can "join" you.

Romans 14:5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Your goal is to learn together, study together, fellowship together, and work together as you proclaim the Gospel to your community.

Romans 15:5 Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: 6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What to expect:

Your work may be seen by some as subversive, and by others as a valuable asset to the church.

This is because if you do nothing but attend, you will be considered by no one as either subversive or as an asset. But as soon as you develop friendships, and then if you express opinions of any kind, and others listen to you and respect you, then by definition you will have "influence". You will be moving towards the ranks of the "movers and shakers" of your church. As others perceive that, those who don't like your personality or your opinions will consider you subversive, and those who do like you will consider you an asset. Loving your enemies, Matthew 5:44-47, is the best thing you can do to reduce opposition for personality reasons. To reduce opposition for theological reasons, adopt the Romans 14 mindset that although you have not (yet) reached agreement with your pastor (or some other member) on every point, the last thing you want to do is allow honest differences of opinion to interfere with your fellowship and the good things you are accomplishing together. No two Christians agree on every theological point, so it isn't honest differences of opinion that bother people. But if you express your opinions very much, then if you aren't perceived as persuading anybody, others will watch to see if you appear to become bitter. If you don't, but remain patient and friendly, no one will consider you "a problem". If you prove persuasive, then others will watch to see whether those who are persuaded still remain on the best terms with those who are not persuaded. If division of your church seems to be a danger, you will be regarded as subversive or "controversial". If everyone seems to be just as friendly as before, or even more so, then the "debate" won't even seem "controversial", but will be regarded the way a "friendly amendment" is regarded in Robert's Rules of Order. It will be seen not as attacking your church doctrines, but as a new revelation which only strengthens your church.

Formal Interaction

As folks in your church become troubled by the merit in what you show them from 1 Corinthians 14, in the face of just too many years of comfortable habits to actually obey it, urge them to implement any or all the half-way measures described in Chapter 12 of "God's Cure for Loneliness".

Examples of reasonable short-range goals are:

(1) in the worship service, more latitude when the pastor invites anyone to "give a testimony". More freedom to speak on any of the other Biblically approved subjects.
(2) in Sunday School, a higher level of interaction. (See Chapter 12, "God's Cure for Loneliness", for the levels of interaction in Sunday School and how to encourage progress.) Also at congregation business meetings.

(3) in the hallway, a "Saltshaker Bulletin Board" where members can post information on any Biblically-approved subject.

(4) in each home, a Church Directory with enough information for members to discover things in common with each other.

(5) in your home, a full-blown 1 Corinthians 14 discussion, with one or two other families.

(Actually these half-measures are such common sense good ideas, without having to justify them. It may not be necessary to present any Grand Picture at all, before simply asking church permission to implement these steps.)

As you "preach the Word", you will be extremely interested in the response. For two reasons: (1) to learn objections to which you will need answers through prayer and study; and (2) to be honest, you still have doubts yourself. You see God's order of service right there in black and white, but all your life you thought church was supposed to be a lecture series. Since you were a little child you assumed that if you wanted the level of fellowship where you actually interact with other people and discuss things, you have to go outside the church, or at least outside the church service.

(Some are so desperate for this level of fellowship that they seek it in bars, although the Bible is not welcome there, so love there does not run deep.)

It is an ingrained, comfortable habit to regard this lecture series we call "church" as, in fact, the "assembling of ourselves together" which Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake.

(Even though the same verse describes an activity not encouraged in "church": "exhorting one another", and the previous verse adds "let us consider [Gr: fix our attention upon] one another to provoke unto love and good works".)

So it is natural for you to present these truths as your tentative positions, contingent on how well they withstand scrutiny.

What to Expect

Full-blown 1 Corinthians 14 discussion, right during the worship service, will be your long range goal. That is the last thing you will see. It won't happen at this step. But there are a number of steps you may expect to see your church take towards that goal, several of which won't even seem controversial.

Full-blown Bible Discussion during the main church service may elude you for a long time, but don't worry about it. You and your church probably aren't ready anyway. Lots of preparation needs to be done.

Most important, your church needs to experience interaction in a trial-size, controllable dose. You have plenty of work just to make sure the little dose they let you give them tastes good to them, so they will want more. In other words, you need to manage the half-way measures they authorize so they are good quality and interesting, and so no irreconcilable hostility breaks out. Your church needs to see for itself that it really is possible for your members to express themselves to each other without fighting, and that even arguments can be resolved, and can become the basis of deeper friendship than before.

Don't be afraid of the odds against you. The LORD is with you. On the other hand, don't imagine victory will be a slam dunk. It will take everything you've got, for as many years as you have left. Just keep working with what God gives you. He will give you no more, nor no less, than you can handle.

Deuteronomy 7:21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. 22 And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. 23 But the LORD thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. 24 And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.

It will take you time and work just to manage the half-way measures. Your interaction with other members, meanwhile, will give you moderating skill for the future.

The Bulletin Board will require time to keep it interesting and current. You will need to encourage others to contribute to it, and to read it.

The expanded church directory will never happen if you just pass out survey forms and hope people will fill them out and return them. Once the project has been authorized, you will probably need to call everyone in church personally to get the information. But treat this as an invaluable excuse to get to know church members you have never before met, and to learn even more about each member than can be expressed in printed words.

Every friendly contact you make, which doesn't affect people negatively because you are talking too much, or because your purpose is unclear or dubious, makes a positive impression that will be invaluable when moral cowards in the church begin deciding whether to censor or support you depending on how most members seem to feel about you.

Expect to be surprised at how many listen with interest to you, without disagreeing. Nearly as many will actually agree you have identified the problem and you offer a credible solution. But if you push very hard or very fast for full-blown Bible Discussion instead of a traditional sermon during the Worship Service, very, very few will actually try to do what they themselves acknowledge God asks. In other words, you will see sympathetic ears but sluggish feet.

But don't get impatient with anybody. Just make your case for interaction, and then let them believe they can fully satisfy you and God, at least for now, by just letting you put up a silly little bulletin board in a dark corner somewhere. Because actually, that will do for now. It will be awhile before you are ready to handle more.

Have I said this enough yet? Just in case I haven't, here is where God says it:

Exodus 23:27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. 28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

Taking member interaction a step at a time will reduce the pressure on you to have an airtight, eloquent, quick-on-your-feet defense of 1 Corinthians 14. Push too fast, and you may become overwhelmed by the creativity you unleash in your friends to think of theological excuses not to obey God.

Just because Bible Discussion is right there in black and white doesn't make getting people to agree a slam dunk.

There are such innovative theological excuses! Such half-remembered verses, from forgotten contexts, that "cancel out" 1 Corinthians 14 so that we don't have to obey it.

I could have written my Scriptural Support for this Step (Chapter One, of "God's Cure for Loneliness" in a couple of pages if I didn't deal with the excuses I have personally encountered.

(Actually I did put it in a page and a half in the section "More Scriptures" of the brochure "As you pray for Des Moines don't ask too little", on our Home Page. It doesn't answer everybody's objections, but it is short enough that more people will read it.)

I anticipate that as you try to present this message to your Christian friends, you will find yourself using every point I have presented in that chapter, and adding several of your own to your arsenal.

The biggest objection to obeying God will be the fear that "it will never work." Your listeners know how hard it is to discuss religion with people. They imagine the chaos and arguing that would result from opening a whole auditorium to Bible discussion.

Although 1 Corinthians 14 is about how to keep Bible discussions organized, there is fear that Gods provisions are not adequate. Although much of the Bible shows us how to love one another, there is great fear that, in a setting where we actually got to know one another, love might be beyond us.

(For more about how to moderate meetings, see Chapters 1, 3, 4, 11, 12, and 15 of "God's Cure for Loneliness", and the whole rest of the Bible. Even the relatively crude Roberts Rules of Order has at least two or three practitioners in every large group, able to effectively maintain order among the most hateful adversaries. God's rules of order are even better.)

The passion that normally accompanies religious discussion is very unpleasant to most Americans in this generation. Women seem especially inclined to be offended by it. And yet wherever humans talk about God, two things are inescapably true: (1) the subject is very important to the people talking; and (2) the people talking do not agree on every little detail. Or even on every detail about the correct way to explain every big detail.

So whenever Christians discuss God long enough, they will stumble over their disagreements, be surprised and shocked, and then begin talking as if they really cared what the other person believes. In other words, they will have the kind of passionate discussion which onlookers, who care nothing of the details defended, will regard as "arguing over nothing and never agreeing on anything". It isn't a sin to care what our brother believes. This is how God wants Christians to behave.

We all know Romans 12:18 tells us to "live peaceably with all men". So isn't that best accomplished by never learning about the heresies lurking in the heart of the guy next to you in the pew?

It's the same dilemma that fills romance novels: love, and risk a broken heart. Never love again, and live a life of loneliness. Fellowship isn't easy. And as we try to obey 1 Corinthians 14, without quite knowing how, we will stumble.

But fellowship is worth it.

(In the future you may meet a different reaction. As this Plan becomes widely known, people will form their impressions of it. Most will form their impressions without reading it, just from what they have heard about it, from someone like their pastor. Some of these impressions will be positive, and you will be received with such enthusiasm that you won't have to prove very much. In fact, they will assure you that since they are already following you, why go over tedious proofs of conclusions they already accept? So they follow, but without the foundational understanding of why they must be committed to this level of fellowship. Matthew 7:24-27.

Many of these shallow followers will fall away when they get into an actual Bible discussion and become offended by relationship problems. They will be like children who pick up shiny new musical instruments, play a few sour notes on them, hoot and holler with glee about how awful they sound, and discard them because they have no vision of what they could accomplish with just a little practice, not to mention how much finer still they would sound after years of practice.

While some will follow blindly, others will denounce you blindly. They will denounce your message as a "heresy" and will angrily expel you from their lives without listening to anything you have to share from the Word.

But little of this resistance will rise up against a simple Saltshaker Bulletin Board. Or to other half-way measures. Prepare yourself for the occasional hostile critic who will throw every challenge at you and continue turning the whole church against you unless you answer him well, but generally speaking, if you go slow and easy and prayerfully, you should expect success.

Your talk of God's Job Description for pastors may make some pastors resentful. They may not like God monkeying with their Job Description. This minority, we hope, of pastors are like "Banana Republic" Dictators whose concept of "authority", or "power", or "order", is iron-fisted control that destroys freedom, happiness, and renders them unable to accomplish much of anything, except to be the absolute master of an economic disaster.

The best you can do with such a pastor is inspire him with God's vision of "power": ability to do wonderful things. Many people working together can do many more wonderful things than the same people who are enslaved by a single man. This is as true of church government as of civil government.

Try to imagine the power of a church set free! No, don't try. You cannot imagine it! But to portray it in a phrase, it turns the world upside down, Acts 17:6. Has your church ever been accused of that?

Although God might monkey with a few job descriptions, God isn't out to fire anybody. The principal training of today's pastors is to know Scripture, to be articulate in presenting it, and to organize people, through contacts with members during the week. These skills would be needed even more in a New Testament Fellowship. Preaching (that is, a lecture) will still be welcome, too; it's just that others will be able to contribute, too, which adds one new duty for a pastor/elder: the function of moderator. A good Moderator is familiar with all the ways a group discussion can run down the sewer, and is prepared with Scripture to lift it back up.

Third Step to Revival:

LINKING YOUR CHURCH WITH OTHERS, THROUGH YOUR NEW 1 COR 14 FELLOWSHIP

As you put #2 into practice, and as your understanding of 1 Corinthians 14 passes every test and you become more sure you are on the right track, your longing for Biblical fellowship will increase. Not finding it anywhere else, able to plant only seeds of it in your old church, you will want to start a new 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship.

Start it. But don't leave your old church. Much work remains there, right where God put you, 1 Corinthians 7:20-24.

Not having to leave is a bonus for those still unsure about all this change, who would be nervous about severing ties to close friends and familiar habits.

In fact, you can't leave your old church. (As a general rule.) How can you strengthen interaction within a congregation which you have left in order to conduct Biblical interaction?

We want fellowship with all true Christians; we don't want to just create one more doctrine that distinguishes us from others and makes others not want to relate to us. That's one of the reasons God opposes denominations: because they identify their members by doctrines which exclude others, thus splitting the Church of Yourcity into a thousand fragments. We want to strengthen ties with true Christians all over Yourcity. We don't want to sever them! Our goal is not a Fellowship which is separate from other Christian groups in our city. Our goal is a Fellowship which will unite all true Christians in a city.

How?

WHY??!

First let's answer "why?" and that will lead into "how?"

The Bible speaks of all the Christians of each city as the Church in that city. John 2:21, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Acts 8:1, 13:1, 15:22, 20:17, Romans 16:1, 1 Corinthians 1:2, etc. 1 Corinthians 1-4 powerfully ridicules any thought of splitting up the Church in that city to follow different leaders. (See Chapter 8, "God's Cure for Loneliness") Thus the denominational divisions already forming, which were the subject of 1 Corinthians 1-4, did not keep Paul from addressing all the factions together as if they were still a single Church, 1 Corinthians 1:2.

So denominational divisions aren't accepted by God, any more than walls of hatred between siblings are accepted by their dad. Dad speaks as if those walls are imaginary, and God speaks as if denominations have no substance. God speaks as if there is still only one church per city which He recognizes, just as dad speaks as if there is still only one family in the house, to which both siblings belong , which he knows about.

So your old church, that is, its building and organizational structure, never was, never can be, a "church" by God's definition. But the true Christians in your old church always will be members of the Church of Yourcity.

(See Chapter 5 of "God's Cure for Loneliness" for Scripture study of church structure.)

Let's clarify the differences between God's city-wide unity and the One World unity of the Ecumenical Movement. There is no precedent in Scripture for any Church to be subject to any outside authority. This applies not just to the Ecumenical Movement, but also to denominations where churches are subject to the doctrines, rules, hierarchies, or even the votes of churches in distant cities!

(See the brochure, "Church of Yourcity", for an analysis of the Council of Jerusalem, showing it didn't establish central church authority, but was convened for the opposite reason: to nullify unauthorized orders alleged to be from the Church of Jerusalem.)

The other great difference between God's Unity and Satan's Ecumenism is the Bible Discussion which replaces the lecture series. Thus Ecumenism is where an ever widening circle of souls are brought under an ever-narrowing central authority, which sits there like a power magnet, attracting Satan's power-driven favorites. God's Unity is where every theological error is made subject to an ever-widening circle of Bible students able and willing to correct it.

How could Satan ever dominate such a Church?! But the Catholic Church, by contrast, is much easier, at least in the absence of special divine intervention, for Satan to dominate. If Satan can succeed in possessing the right man, he's got billions of souls!

There is even an entire Roman Catholic monastery which puts out an entire magazine and videotape, containing elaborate proofs, that this has already happened: "A Voice in the Wilderness", Most Holy Family Monastery, 4425 Schneider Road, Fillmore, NY 14735. Not that these Catholics are right about their pope, but the point is unity needs to be done God's way, not Satan's way, or it can be just as deadly as God's way makes it a blessing!

Although your goal is to fulfill God's unity between all Christians in your city, your goal cannot be to try to convert all the people in your old church to come to your new, your REAL Church. They wouldn't fit. It is necessary, in a city with many thousands of Christians, like Jerusalem, Acts 2:41, 4:4, to break up and meet in smaller groups, Acts 2:46. And yet all those smaller groups, those "home churches", were united in at least two ways: they were given the same name, a single name: the Church of Jerusalem, and they were able to hold a council which spoke for the entire Fellowship.

Therefore there must have been some way communication flowed between one group and another. Some system of representation, where representatives of groups could meet together and compare notes.

Formality of representation is not the point. Maybe each group formally elected a representative to a coordinating council; maybe not. Maybe people just visited each other's meetings, and when they returned to their own meetings they shared what they heard as if it were the latest, hottest gossip.

Reported by Promise Keepers: in some small towns influenced by Promise Keepers rallies, churches are replacing their signs with "Church Of (Name of their town)", and putting the name of their denomination in small print!

We are only at Step #3 to Revival. At this point, you cannot ask your church to elect representatives to the Coordinating Council of Yourcity. Your church would ask you to leave. These Biblical doctrines are strange and new to them. Your church will have to study them for some time before they are ready to accept them. (You, who are reading this Plan for the first time, will too!)

Your eventual goal is information being shared between all true Christians in Yourcity, with the help of official church publications such as bulletins, pastor's letters, newsletters, websites, email, snail mail, radio shows, and web forums. But your immediate goal is to be happy with whatever slight information flow you can generate without official church endorsement.

Since you are also attending a 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship, you will naturally share the latest with them. And when you are back in your old church, you will naturally share the latest from the Fellowship. Everyone else in your informal network, and your formal network when you have one, will also have their favorite outside sources of information to share.

Thus you will "evolve" naturally into a "contact person" in your old church for your new Fellowship. Or in other words, into a representative, of your new Fellowship, to your old church. It doesn't matter whether you have that title. As long as you have that function, then the two bodies of believers have a little taste of oneness, through you. And if your Fellowship has similar ties with other churches, then all the True Christians in those bodies have this same taste of oneness.

This is true whether your friends in your old church interact through officially recognized mediums, or through informal gatherings in back yards, potlucks, or just by getting together as friends, two or three at a time. It is still a "network" to which you can communicate little bits of information from your 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship, and from which you can deliver reports to your Fellowship.


Fourth Step to Revival:

FORMALIZING INTERACTION BETWEEN THE NEW FELLOWSHIP AND YOUR OLD CHURCH

After your church sees individual members interacting informally, yet passing quantities of accurate and useful information from one to another, and after your church has officially allowed interaction mediums like a bulletin board, etc., and sees how members naturally bring information from outside sources to study together and scrutinize together, your church may be ready to allow official exchanges of information with those outside sources approved by the congregation.

Perhaps your 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship will become one of those sources.

A simple medium of such intercommunication would be for your old church to allow your Fellowship to put a stack of its free newspapers on a hallway table, for members to take as they leave. Such a newspaper could contain articles contributed by members of your old church, along with articles from Christians all across your city.

That would be an example of Formal Interaction. An example of Informal Interaction, which could begin long before your church officially approves of Formal Interaction, would be a Church of Yourcity Chat Room.

Another example of Formal Interaction would be someone from the Fellowship being part of a panel discussion in a Sunday School class.

When there is formal intercommunication, the flow of information is increased, from what a few personally can transmit, to what the entire organizational structure of your old church can transmit.

Now others from your old Church can attend Fellowship meetings with you for the purpose of interacting with other Churches in your city, as well as for the purpose of learning from folks with a little experience trying to moderate Bible discussions.

Attitude Repair Kit

There is no way any formal intercommunication will occur between your Fellowship and your old church as long as your old church senses any competition from your Fellowship.

Let there be no talk of "your church" being superior to, or a replacement of, "their church". After all, it is God's position that "your church" IS "their church". There can't be two churches in the same city, according to God! That is like saying the head doesn't need the feet, 1 Corinthians 12:21!

Your attitude cannot be that of a church splitter who solves controversies by walking away from a challenge. Your attitude must be like the grief that a family member has strayed, but who could ever just think of walking away from family? Separation just isn't acceptable! You just have to hang in there, staying as close as they let you, waiting for an opening to inch a little closer. Whether the wait takes minutes or years, or even if it never comes, it's worth it!

Paul saw a church split (v. 30, next) in advance. Three years of daily warnings, with tears, (v. 31), is the attitude of a dear, close relative. And yet, even though the propensity of the Ephesians to split was great enough to reduce Paul to 3 years of crying, Paul held up a vision of their ultimate victory over sin (v. 32)! Let that be our attitude.

Acts 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

Yes, you believe the centerpiece of "church" should be a Bible Discussion. But your old church leadership doesn't really deny that is the picture drawn in 1 Corinthians 14, does it? It doesn't take a dogmatic stand that the Bible demands a lecture series and not discussion at all, does it? Now look at how long it took you to accept 1 Corinthians 14. You can be a little sympathetic, can't you? You don't need to condemn them to Hell for not moving any faster than you did, do you?

Yes, you believe obedience to God in this rather major matter, how to conduct a worship service, is a key to Revival across America. And you long deeply for Revival. And you are afraid Satan is marching so fast that "THE CHURCH" won't awaken fast enough to prevent him.

But it is not church leadership that is necessarily holding things up. You also know nobody is preventing true Christians across your city from interacting informally, but that progress towards informal fellowship is limited only by your own laziness.

Formal interaction would ease your burden, by adding church resources to your own for distributing information. But even if every church in Yourcity decreed next Sunday that they now endorse voluntary interaction with members of every other church, how would anyone know where to begin? Little would happen, unless there were friendships already formed, communication already flowing, between Christians from different churches. On the other hand, if interaction springs up informally, on the wings of common, ordinary friendships which no one would think of censoring, and the friendships are healthy, vibrant, and they earn the approval of all, so that endorsement of them isn't even controversial, how will church leaderships fail to encourage them?

So there is no further need to moan "If only THE CHURCH would ________!" Or "If only PASTORS would _________!" The ball is in your court! Don't give anyone else reason to moan "If only YOU would _______!"

Pastors aren't as dead set against righteousness as you might think. Pastors really aren't free to do everything they believe to be right. They often have an appearance of being absolute masters of their flocks, but remember even the dictator Pilate was afraid of pushing his control too far. John 19:8.

No dictator, of any land, of any time, can push his subjects harder than they will tolerate being pushed. Much less pastors. Although pastors may not tell you in quite these words, they know that their congregation is full of little crybabies (1 Cor 3:1-4) who will go break off into another Church Fragment at the least provocation. They walk quite a tightrope trying to please everybody in order to achieve some semblance of stability.

You will find Pastors who utterly agree with you, yet they do not know how to tell their congregations unless they are ready to kiss them all goodbye. It is even traditional for Sunday School teachers to long for more group interaction, and some Pastors likewise urge as much interaction as they know how.

Pastors need your help. Your job is greater than just to persuade one man in a church (the Pastor) and expect him to carry the ball from there. You need to introduce many, perhaps most, of your fellow church members, to friendly interaction.

If, next Sunday, your pastor suddenly urged everyone to take a turn at the mike, how many do you estimate would participate? Three or four? One or two? Forget obedience to 1 Corinthians 14. Most people are just plain, ordinary, everyday SHY. Look at Moses, Exodus 4. He was talking with God Himself! That is a lot more impressive than talking to you or me, or reading off a written page. God Himself! Yet look how hard God had to talk with Moses to get him to stand up in front of all the people and talk to them! Even he was SHY!

Most people are even shy about meeting new friends! But one to one friendship is a much easier door to interaction, for almost everybody, than slamming them up there behind the pulpit. And obviously, that being the key to 1 Corinthians 14 interaction, your pastor cannot do it alone!

Let these be your attitudes as your Fellowship reaches out to the church bodies of Yourcity. Let there be no striving, or pride, or competition. But love, tears, humility, sympathy, willingness to help.

Again, the goal of the Fellowship is NOT to make every church agree on ANY uniform "position" in order to "join". Nor is it anyone's purpose to endorse anyone else. But it is to learn together, study together, fellowship together, and work together to proclaim the Gospel to the community, to whatever extent everybody can agree how to do it. (Not that mere human agreement is anyone's goal; but rather it will be the goal of most to agree with as many as will agree with God.) No one meets out of any willingness to compromise the Truth for the sake of superficial "harmony", but rather a Bible Discussion throws every heresy in the ring with Truth so that Truth has a better chance to prevail.

No one who comes is asked to "respect" a brother's heresy, or to be silent about it in the name of courtesy. But everyone is asked to love their brother!

It is not even necessary to condemn denominations. The Fellowship can quite naturally say it consists of members of many denominations, so that it would be impossible to obey any one denomination. It can make decisions only by consensus of all Christians present. That can be said without undermining the legitimacy of any denomination.

It is true that God does not recognize the authority of anyone outside a city, over the Church of that city. But although our ultimate vision is an end to the "authority" of every denomination over any church in our city, that is a vision which we need not actively press for, but will be content for each church to come to that recognition voluntarily, in its own time, without any pressure from us. After all, most denominational "authority" is slight, and is not really malignant. (Examples: bookkeeping, communication arrangements, and other morals-neutral office matters.)

Moreover, our ultimate vision offers each denomination something greater than mere authority over a handful of churches in our city: our vision -- God's vision -- offers each national denomination influence over ALL the churches of our city! Yes, every theology that has merit will find expression in the pulpits of Bible Discussions. Every denomination has at least one good theological position. When a denomination has a particularly eloquent spokesman for a treasured position willing to travel to our city, surely hundreds would gather to hear him, question him, and reason with him.

When we have a godly attitude, godly goals, godly faith, and godly work habits, there is no reason to despair that we shall never see God-given success!


Fifth Step to Revival

REVIVAL! TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA!

Can you imagine the power of tens of thousands interacting, reasoning with each other, sharing information, scrutinizing allegations and positions together?

No, of course you can't. You have never seen it. You have never heard of it. You have never heard anyone even suggest it. So just keep reading a little longer. This is almost over.

Well, maybe you have heard of it a little bit. But not since the last time you read Acts.

Formal intercommunication between a 1 Corinthians 14 Fellowship, which is also committed to God's vision of a single Church for a city, is the lynch pin which will turn the Christians of Yourcity into an incredible, unstoppable Partnership Machine.

This Partnership Machine will not be able to do any kind of thing you cannot begin doing right now, on a much smaller scale. But when the leadership of your church "speaks with one voice" with the informal information network of friends, and when the leadership of your church can speak with a voice united with the leadership of many other churches on any specific issue, that poor issue, whatever issue upon which many churches can agree and speak publicly, will just have to fall in line.

Following is a partial list of things that would naturally result from city-wide Christian obedience to the church service commandments of 1 Corinthians 14 (see especially verse 37), and the church unity commandments of 1 Corinthians 1-4. Remember that these wonderful results are only quantitatively greater than what you can begin to experience right now. The things you can achieve right now will make people say, "What made him so enthusiastic all of a sudden?" The things that will happen after Christians obey God in becoming of one mind (Romans 12:16, 15:6, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Philippians 1:27, 2:2, 1 Peter 3:8) will make people say,

Acts 17:6 "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;"

1. BIBLE READING

Christians with little prior incentive to read their Bibles will begin studying! Because now, all of a sudden, (a) they have an opportunity to share what they know! (b) ideas are coming out which they never heard before, which they want to investigate! (c) nutty ideas are coming out which they want to refute! (d) those who can back up their points with Scripture are proving the most persuasive in the group. And (e) they see Scripture able to answer more questions than they ever before thought existed, and even though the multitude of new questions raised is overwhelming, the power of the Word is proving so competent to answer them all that their curiosity drives them to feast on the Word!

2. SIN CENTERS CLOSED

People whose hearts are touched by sermons about community sins, and to whom God has given the right skills, will be free to step forward to help mobilize volunteers to do something about those sins; to close down bars, smut shops, and abortion traps using methods which cannot close them when used by only a dozen, but which can easily close them when persistently used by several hundred, and can permanently close them when used by thousands!

Members with the Holy Spirit Gifts of "helps" (1 Corinthians 12:28) will be set free to coordinate willing church members in being "salt and light" in their communities. Thus not only will there be revival within churches, but churches will spread their revival to their communities.

3. SPIRIT-FILLED POLITICS

"Governments" is another Holy Spirit Gift listed in that verse. Members with this Gift will be free to study legislation together, plan together, and distribute educational information to their congregation together.

Scriptural support for the following: see my book "The Gift of 'Governments'", and Chapter 15 of "God's Cure for Loneliness".

There seems to be a race between the awakening of Christians and the enthroning of Antichrist. Antichrist is no match for awakened, united Christians! But Christians who believe they should behave as if they were asleep, or Christians who are "a kingdom divided", Matthew 12:25, are a midnight snack for Antichrist.

Wherever even one or two Christians per church, who have the Gift of Governments, communicate with similarly Gifted Christians elsewhere, and with their congregation, those numbers would bring such an influx of new voting strength into politics that millions, nay, not even thousands of dollars, would no longer be necessary to win!

"Electability" would no longer force Christians to settle for "the lesser of two evils". Such a network of Christians would study candidates for themselves, without waiting for their brains to be washed by expensive TV commercials! "Electability" would be determined by the degree of consensus the Partnership Machine itself, without worrying about uninformed voters, could muster for a candidate.

Because only one person per church in any candidate's district, volunteering for that candidate, is enough to get that candidate elected by a landslide! Does that tell you how apathy drives politics today?

Several miraculous things would happen if Christians were unrestricted in politics, which will never happen as long as Christians allow their intercommunication to be suppressed:

Judicial tyranny will have to cease! Godless, law-perverting judges would quickly be defeated at the polls and/or impeached! Their defiant stands for abortion, sodomy, and smut would be reversed!

Christians would even have the luxury of choosing how to end each abomination. They might say of abortion, "Well, the death temples were closed last week, when 50,000 of us surrounded them, and when police cars arrived, we picked them up by hand and carried them down the street. What shall we do this week? Shall we order Congress to pass that Human Life Amendment? Or shall we cut to the chase and order them to impeach the pro-murder judges? Well of course, both; but I mean, which shall we order Congress to do first?"

All of a sudden, "Electability" would depend on wisdom, morality, and intelligent positions. Money, ability to spin an issue so it raises flags on neither side of it, and who you are related to, would suddenly drop from first place to last place in importance!

Lawmakers who haven't time to read the massive bills they pass would have the assistance of several of their constituents who have read them.

Good legislation would not have to wait for a majority of lawmakers to get around to understanding it. Any legislation with the support of the Christian "Partnership Machine" would attract calls of support sufficient to disarm opposition.

There is nothing extraordinary about any of these claims. Of course, everyone in politics will readily admit, IF such an overwhelming number of Christians, as one per church, were to work together, they would pick up the abandoned reins of American Government. What is extraordinary is the extent of apathy in America today which makes these claims look like miracles.

(Of course, the scenario of 50,000 at Planned Murderhood, at least in Des Moines with a metro area of 300,000, assumes more like 10 or 20 per church who study together, and who are able to persuade many of their fellow members to turn out on occasion for something important.)

Song:
Comes the end of time when Antichrist shall reign!
People want a human savior once again!
We let experts do our thinking. Bureaucrats pull our strings.
"Politics is dirty", so we drop the reins.

No one realizes as they watch their TV
Antichrist is summoned by their apathy!

C'mon, Antichrist! C'mon, Antichrist!
Antichrist is summoned by their apathy!

But isn't politics "dirty"?

"Separation of church and state" was only invented a couple of generations ago (as it is defined today) by the Supreme Court.

"Politics" is inherently, naturally, and spiritually inseparable from Christian witness.

Politics has come to appear "dirty" only as Christian witness has become censored from it.

The "vision" above actually looks more like a history lesson than some wild science fiction scenario which the world has never seen. The political campaigns of America's founding fathers were full of Scripture; most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of the first Congress, were pastors; and after they were elected, the Congressional Record records the intense Bible studies they did as they sought God's will in the passage of laws!

But "mixing politics and religion" hardly started there! It's been going on since Job became the leader of his land (Job 29), Abraham defeated the Four Kings who had defeated the Five Kings (Genesis 14), Joseph became the defacto ruler of virtually the whole world (Genesis 47:13, 25), Moses lobbied Pharaoh for religious freedom (Exodus 5:1-3), Moses, after enacting a system of civil laws which American laws are patterned after, established a system of judges to enforce them (Exodus 18), Israel defeated and occupied Canaan, Israel passed through a cycle of backsliding and revival, with each revival led by a Judge, that is, a Judge with military and civil authority (Book of Judges), Samuel gave God's warning that His people were stupid to prefer tyranny to democracy (1 Samuel 8), David became a world ruler (2 Samuel 10:19), Solomon became a world ruler (1 Kings 4:21), Daniel became the defacto world ruler (Daniel 2:46-48), Esther married the world ruler and "got politically involved" for the sake of her people after a stern warning against not getting politically involved (Esther 4:13-14), Ezra and Nehemiah used their political positions to restore Jerusalem (Ezra 1, Nehemiah 1), (In fact how many Old Testament Bible stories can you think of that were not about political leaders, or the prophets who witnessed to political leaders?); Jesus challenged the qualifications for office of the Judges/lawmakers of the great Sanhedrin (Luke 11 -- the Sanhedrin, by the way, ruled in cooperation with Rome; it had become packed with Sadducees and Priests nominated by King Herod, according to "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah", by Edersheim, p. 238, vol. 1), Jesus challenged the legitimacy of the Sanhedrin's hygiene laws (Mark 7:5-13), Jesus deliberately opposed the Sanhedrin's rulings prohibiting healings, and carrying beds, on the Sabbath (John 9), or even shelling corn on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-14 -- for perspective, remember that until a couple of generations ago, even America had laws limiting work on Sunday), Peter witnessed to the Sanhedrin (Acts 4), Paul lobbied the world ruler (Acts 25:11), Paul called it a wonderful opportunity to lobby Caesar's entire palace (Philippians 1:13, 4:22), and John revealed that the ultimate evil of all time would be when world political leaders voluntarily hand over their authority to Satan, the Antichrist! (Revelation 17:13)

Do you marvel that kings would voluntarily give their power to Satan? Do you marvel that American politicians voluntarily give American sovereignty over to the United Nations? Do you marvel that Christians voluntarily give their power to avowed enemies of God, sometimes by voting for them, and the rest of the time by not bothering to vote against them?

I don't understand what people are thinking of when they say politics isn't in the Bible. Have they no concept of what politics is? Have they not read the Bible? Often I wonder if it is both.

America's founding fathers went so far as to disenfranchise atheists. The oath of office, for probably every office in America, required affirmations such as "Jesus Christ is the Son of God."

Way before we return that far, we can end the current ridicule given any lawmaker who dares quote from Scripture in defense of his position! And we can look to the day when Bible-quoting lawmakers are the majority!

We would not even know abortion is murder, if the Bible did not tell us an unborn baby is fully human. Psalms 139, Luke 2, Jeremiah 1:5, etc. So then when we go into "political" places, why do we not tell people why we oppose abortion? Why do we not quote from the Bible so people will know we have a reasonable explanation for our position, and we aren't just stupid? But no, politicians tell each other, quoting the Bible, during political campaigns, or on the floor of Congress, would "destroy our credibility".


Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

The perverted result makes many sincere Christians see politics as "dirty", as a process which "isn't going to do any good". Without God, it sure can't do much good, Psalm 127:1. Can't you see how desperately needed the Gospel is in America's "politics"?

I don't mean to be unappreciative of the movement in America today to support issues which would never have been issues but for the Bible. But the support for these issues is surpassed by resistance, even among the very supporters of these issues, to quoting the Bible in their own support.

Can you explain to me how claiming that Bible quoting would "destroy my credibility" is different than saying "we don't want to quote the Bible because we are ashamed of the Gospel"?

2 Timothy 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

The custom of leaving the Bible at home when you go to political meetings is not of God. It is men who never want you to preach Jesus when you go to the Capitol, where they pass laws, hold court, and spend your money. Men want you to stay in your church to do your preaching. Don't obey men.

Acts 5:27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, 28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. 29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. 31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.

The sin greater than leaving the Bible at home when you go to the Capitol is leaving your political discernment at home when you go to church.

Church members think a pastor is great if he preaches that the Bible is the Word of God, which makes abortion murder, and fornication wrong, and sodomy an abomination, etc., and Christians must never do these things, or be "unequally yoked" (2 Corinthians 6:14) with sinners who do these things.

But the same church members would never forgive a pastor for saying anything about the deacon who is a senator who votes to protect all these abominations with America's courts and police! Or about Christians who go out and vote for "good Christians" like that!

People say Jesus wasn't "involved in politics". They say this because they think Rome was the only government with political authority in Jesus' time, and Jesus did not take a stand against Roman law. But the Scribes and Pharisees were representatives of Roman authority. History books describe their political jurisdiction, compared with Roman authority, like our local government compares with our state or federal government. People quote John 18:31, where the Pharisees told Pilate "it is not lawful for us to put any man to death." People say this proves the Pharisees had no temporal authority. All they had was a church.

But history and the Biblical context suggest it was only crucifixion for which they needed permission. The Pharisees obviously had the power to execute lawbreakers by stoning. John 8:5, 8:59, 10:31, 11:8, Luke 20:6. They had their own police with the power to make arrests, John 7:32, 44-46, Luke 22:52-54. They had the power to deprive citizens of their citizenship, John 9:34-35. Their Sanhedrin had the power to enact new laws which their police had the power to enforce, Mark 7:5-7. These are the powers of a government!

"Politics" simply means the process through which society decides how to govern itself. There are many less direct ways Christians can be the "salt and light" of society, than through "politics". There is no more direct way.

Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

In those times when America was overwhelmingly Christian, few police were necessary. But for those who rebel against God, laws defining their crimes as prosecutable are necessary to keep them from destroying people and property without restraint. Seat belt laws are an example where only a weak case can be made that not wearing one hurts anybody else. Yet the laws are heralded because they are educational, and their effect is that they save lives. Well, if seat belt laws can be defended, just because they save lives, and because they are educational, then how about anti-abortion, anti-sodomy, anti-smut, and anti-fornication laws, which save far more physical lives, and which save souls? And which are just as educational?

It is very strange for a church to cooperate with a drive to hold up prolife signs once a year, for a "Lifechain" along a street, but to refuse to cooperate with voter education regarding prolife candidates. It is very strange to support bandaids to cover up the wound while vehemently opposing surgery to remove the bullet.

One of the many excuses for treating godless politicians as sacred cows is that to preach against a particular politician would threaten the church's precious nonprofit status. The thinness of this excuse is exposed by reading the IRS rules. They frown upon "endorsement" of specific candidates, but actually encourage general "education". In fact, "education" is made a basis for granting nonprofit status to anyone. It is perfectly "educational", in the strict legal sense, to point out to a congregation that it is a sin against God to vote for someone who will spend taxpayers' resources protecting sins against God.

When I incorporated "The Partnership Machine, Inc." in 1986, which has "sheltered" our "Prayer & Action News", one of its specific official purposes was to demonstrate the extent of political involvement which a nonprofit or a church can lawfully undertake without disturbing its exempt status. I even listed the things a church can do; I took the language from the IRS nonprofit rules. I can assure you, after 13 years of experience with no questions asked, though many rich enemies would like to have thought of some, that any church is perfectly free to be at least as politically involved as I have been!

How the Prayer & Action News and The Partnership Machine, Inc. Can Help

The Partnership Machine was organized in 1986 as a Nonprofit Corporation for the purpose of implementing The Plan. Its structure is given in detail in Chapter 12 of "God's Cure for Loneliness".

The Prayer & Action News was created in 1989 for the purpose of providing information to Christians, scattered throughout all churches, who are willing to use it to salt and to light up their communities.

The original purpose of the Prayer & Action News was to be a forum for people who are taking action to reach each other, compare notes, explain what they have learned, and coordinate their efforts with each other.

It was even subscriber owned. Its policies and purposes will be dictated by consensus of subscribers.

(Should there be so many subscribers with so many conflicting priorities that rules are necessary to implement this vision in an orderly manner, they are proposed in the Bylaws of The Partnership Machine, Inc., reprinted in Chapter 12 of "God's Cure for Loneliness".)

Hebrews 10:25 warns us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and Proverbs 11:14, 15:22, and 24:6 show the necessity of counsellors if you want to do anything important. The Bible only confirms the common sense conclusion that a newsletter such as the P&A, or any better means of communication if you can think of it, is indispensable to our success, and is obedience to God.

Spontaneous Email, phone calls, and letters between "Planners" should naturally supplement the P&A.

And now that you have read The Plan, your choice is not just to either buy into it or walk away. After what I have been through trying to establish Christian interaction, I am not going to be satisfied telling you all what to do in order to receive the privilege of working with me!

If this is not your plan too, or if you can find any evidence this is not God's plan, it is your Ezekiel 3:18-20 duty to warn me, unless you want to share my eternal punishment for promoting heresy.

Your comments, positive or negative, logical or ridiculous, will be included with this article in its future appearances.

The ball is in your court. (1) Get on board, or (2) warn the conductor if the train is taking the wrong track, or (3) get run over or left behind or both.

Feedback Box Got feedback? Send it, along with name or url of the article, and a little of the text on either side of where your comment belongs, so I know what you are responding to, and I'll post your response. I might even place it right smack dab in the article! (If you don't want your email posted, SAY SO!)