BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Like anything else God has ever asked anyone to do for Him, starting a church requires faith. And how does faith come? It comes by hearing the Word. So, without a clear word from God directing someone to start a new work, how can they have faith or confidence that the church will succeed? I’m convinced that many churches fail because, without a word from God, they never should have opened in the first place. In other words, God wasn’t in it. When writing his letters to the churches in the New Testament, Paul would often greet them saying, “Paul, an apostle by the will of God….” Every time he wrote those words, Paul was saying, “I didn’t give myself this calling and I didn’t anoint myself to do this assignment. The Lord did this. It’s His will.” Paul was confident in what God had called him to do. Like Paul’s high calling, the groundwork for our churches must be a word from the Lord, a chapter and verse, the witness of the Spirit, and even an affirming word from our elders. Without them, there’s no foundation for success. Measure True Success Once we have that foundation, how do we know it’s working? Is a successful church measured by how many services it holds? How many campuses are scattered around town? How many people are in the seats? How much money is in the bank? While all those things can provide an image of success on the surface, none of them is a true indicator of a church’s well-being. Instead, we must ask: “What does God call success?” When God looks at a church, He does so with these questions in mind: · Are people being born again or healed? · Are lives being touched and changed? · Are minds being renewed? · Are marriages being restored? The answers to those questions are God’s measuring stick for success because they all have one thing in common: They reveal a manifestation of His love (1 Corinthians 13:8). Consider those who become born again. How do they get from their seats to the altar? Love draws them. As believers, we can preach and teach love—and we should—but at some point love must quit being just a sermon topic and instead become the atmosphere in the room. It must become the air we breathe. If we are going to pastor, and be part of a church that cannot fail, then we must be quick to acknowledge that atmosphere matters. Preaching the love of God is vitally important, but at some point the message must overflow into a tangible manifestation of God’s love for us, our love for Him and for each other. Walk In Love Ephesians 5:1-2, "New King James Version," says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Isn’t that a beautiful picture? Jesus’ love for us, manifested in His sacrifice for us, filled the very atmosphere of heaven and became a sweet smell to God. Ephesians continues, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints” (verse 3). Wow! That escalated quickly! Immediately after a beautiful description of walking in love, the Spirit of God through Paul began talking about the seriousness of fornication and covetousness—sins, he said, that have no place in God’s house and shouldn’t even be named among us. Why? Because at their root, they are simply a failure to walk in love. Sadly, we’ve all seen ministers and ministries, both large and small, fail in the area of sexual purity and financial integrity. But at their core, these failures are about more than sex and money. They are a failure to walk in the love of God. Jesus told us in Matthew 6:24 that we cannot serve two masters. We can’t love God and love money. It’s either one or the other. We all are familiar with 1 Timothy 6:10 that says, “For the love of money is the root of all evil,” but that is not where that verse ends. It goes on to say, “for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” ("NKJV"). Loving money is what I call “a financial affair,” because it is paramount to cheating on God, straying from your faith in Him, and will serve only in the end to pierce you through with many sorrows. You cannot walk in love with your spouse and be unfaithful to them at the same time, giving your attention and affection to someone else. In the same way, you cannot profess to be a faithful bride and lover of God, while you put your love and trust in the feeble arms of money. The church that cannot fail is not led by flawless people; it is led by faithful people—those who refuse to allow unfaithfulness in these areas to be named among them. 10 : BVOV

• Cover