Today I went to be part of the ‘Pastors’ feast’ at Riverview church and have to say it was a sensational day. I came home extremely grateful for and encouraged by the whole experience.
For the grand sum of $20.00 we had sensational input from Erwin McManus as well as a pretty decent session from Wayne Alcorn. We had some good ‘fillers’ and then to cap it off we had a brilliant feed of roast beef vegies and salad.
Somehow they did it for $20.00… $20.00…
$20.00… Yes – I am making a point!
My guess is the Riverview crew must have subsidised it in some way because it would have cost way more than that to run I am sure. I can only stand impressed at the generous spirit that made this event happen and that blessed a whole bunch of pastors.
So to the big church critics here’s a place where these guys have excelled in every way – especially in their generosity. And to the skeptics, there was no offering and no request for us to dig deep.
My ‘hat is off’ to the Riverview crew.
McManus talk on Acts 17 was right on the money for those of us who feel our calling is to be missionaries. Firstly he reminded us that this is often thought of as one of Paul’s failures because the ‘conversion rate’ was pretty lame. But then he goes on to point out that this is Paul away from Judaism and in a whole different environment. He was indicating that when we reach those who are within our cultural sphere it is much simpler.
He suggested the church spends too much time gearing up to reach ‘Nathaniels’ (those within easy reach) and not enough out amongst the ‘Dyonisious’ and ‘Damaris” – the people who are far from our churchy culture. He asked the question ‘who will reach out to those who aren’t going to come?…’
In the Q & A session one punter posed the question ‘how do you develop a culture of soul winning in your church?’ McManus answer was harsh but pretty much on the money, ‘Firstly by losing that kind of language!’ He was referring to both the competitive aspect of the phrase as well as the fact that whole people follow Jesus – not just souls.
I believe I heard a fellow missionary speak today and would recommend you get along to any of his stuff as it will encourage you and
I listen to Erwin’s podacsts each week so it was a real thrill to be able to spend half an hour with him yesterday.
I’ve put a link to my radio interview with him on my blog.
http://www.rodneyolsen.net/2007/11/jesus-is-nice-bloke.html
Good job Riverview. Every church has it’s place. Riverview it seems is using its resources well.
I loved that he pulled no punches in response to that thinking – how much more could be done if more had the courage to do just that. Thanks for sharing a bit of your feast!
awesome, thanks for sharing your thoughts from the event! do you know if they’ll be releasing audios for download?
“So to the big church critics here’s a place where these guys have excelled in every way – especially in their generosity. And to the skeptics, there was no offering and no request for us to dig deep.”
And where were you again? A ‘PASTOR’s feast.’
Pastors always have been and always will be treated like royalty by the megachurches.
That’s so that when a megachurch pastor goes to another church..HE/SHE is treated like royalty.
A visiting pastor comes to Revenue Church, is picked up from the airport…driven around town, put up in the nicest hotel…gets the full undivided attention of the senior pastor….and is generally fawned over for several days.
Of course he leaves there saying ‘wow…this is a really great church’…and the favour is returned when a Revenue Church pastor goes interstate and overseas.
But I can tell you now..if you’re Joe Schmoe..and you run into Phil Baker ….you might get a grunt..or a half-smirk….or you may even fluke a ‘hello’…before he returns his full attention to the pastoral person that he happens to be fawning over at the time.
It’s very very different out in the pews..outside of the pastor sub-culture.
As for the lack of offering spiel….pastors are never ever subjected to that….that’s just for the punters. Baker’s very careful to steer clear of the money side of things when he’s trying to ingratiate himself to other pastors around Perth.
However I will point out in Revenue’s particular case….they were forced into scaling back their 5 minute tithe mini-sermons they had each service…not through their prayerful and thoughtful consideration or any kind of standards of basic human decency..but because of a relentless campaign targeting Baker ..principally through the original Signposts blog….
Eventually the campaign worked…and eventually he backed down and adopted a more appropriate approach (although his greed still gets the better of him and he lapses into old Word-of-Faith speak from time to time – You can take the boy out of the Rhema WOF..but..etc..etc.)
But Baker’s backdown wasn’t achieved overnight…it took a couple of years of pressure to get him to pull back from the church’s scripturally and emotionally manipulative push for cash.
Phil would have been in his element though at the ‘pastor’s feast’, being able to cultivate the support of local pastors..without being bothered by the riff-raff.
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A brilliant time indeed! Riverview hit the spot!
I missed the lunch, but could see (and smell) what I was going to sadly miss. But I did feast on all that ‘Irwin’ had to feed us with!
What a great humble guy he appears to be. Loved his take on ‘Soul Winning’ etc.
Maybe it was funded by Riverview’s/Rhema’s dodgy Property Investment arm:
http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/05-194+Gold+Coast+property+developer+provides+enforceable+undertaking?openDocument
The books are not open at Romanza … no wonder they are not open at Riverview.
A feast indeed. It is little wonder the US Senate is investigating the Word of Faith network.
yes an excellent session-pity more pastors not there to hear it. I thiught some f the questions asked in the q qnd a revealed a lot about “our” thinking…
So, this is where my tithe offering is going. Shame shame shame.
I think you’ll find your ‘tithe offering’ (not a new testament concept..but I digress) goes lots of places you didn’t realise.
Particularly on payments of business class airfares…4.5-5 star accommodation and exhorbitant speaking fees to pastors who have arrangements to speak in each other’s churches..so their income can not be fully scrutinised by their own church members or by the tax office..
It would be nice though if there was some people in the church with a Christian conscience who were prepared to blow the whistle on what’s really going on…
Good points made by both Hamo and Lance.