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Beware the health and wealth gospel

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Joe and Tammy TkachThough we have learned as a denomination to appreciate regional and cultural differences in the way we worship God, that does not mean that we believe that “anything goes.” We draw the line at behavior that leads people away from a right relationship with God.

As I travel around the world, I take note of questions from our pastors and members. Their questions often arise from what they heard a popular preacher say on television. They ask me: “Have you read their book?” “What do you think of their teaching?” My answers typically advise caution, for sound theology often is lacking in what televangelists offer. I don’t mean to paint them all with the same broad brush, but the unfortunate fact is that many of them teach what is known as the health and wealth gospel. It’s also known as the word of faith, positive confession or seed-faith teaching. Some give it more pejorative names like name it and claim it or blab it and grab it. Perhaps calling it the health and stealth gospel would be the most accurate, for this false teaching has the potential to lead people away from the true gospel.

 

Missionary experts have noted how many people who embrace the health and wealth gospel are caught up in it for three to five years before they realize that the only ones prospering are the televangelists. When they realize they have been duped, some look for another church where they can recover from the false teaching. Sadly, others stop attending church altogether.

Health and wealth teachers abandon sound principles of biblical interpretation and teaching and utilize sensational, often bizarre theatrics to keep their audiences stirred up. Their message is that physical health and wealth is the evidence of God’s saving grace. But that teaching is nonsense—it is grounded in several exegetical, hermeneutical and theological errors.

One error is the belief that you can release the power of heaven through your words. This is quite a departure from the examples of prayer in Scripture. It is akin to occult or magical practices where spirits, powers and forces must do your bidding if you know the right words (incantation) to say. This approach makes God out to be some sort of cosmic vending machine!

Another error is the belief that you need special, private revelation from God to understand the teaching, because it is not made clear in the Bible. Here is an illustrative quote from a popular word of faith televangelist: “The Bible can’t even find any way to explain this. Not really. That’s why you’ve got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I’m telling you. I’ve got to just trust God that he’s putting it into your spirit like he put it into mine.” Really? The apostle Paul warned in Galatians 1:6-9 about claims to special, private revelations and interpretations. Be on your guard!

The reason the health and wealth gospel is spiritually harmful is that it presents a relationship with God as a transaction: If you don’t do your part, you won’t be blessed. But if you speak the right words, with just the right attitude (what they erroneously refer to as “faith”), then God must give you the asked-for benefit.

God is not interested in a transactional relationship with us. His covenant is not a contract—not an if you, then I proposition. God gives to us freely out of his own goodness, love and sheer generosity in accordance with the promises he freely has made toward his people and creation. Relating to God in a transactional way is a form of pagan religion—a form of idolatry—that denies God’s grace and distrusts his gracious character. It is the very thing that Jesus condemned in the Jewish religious leaders of his day. The idea of conducting a transaction with God is doomed from the beginning for we can never perfectly “do our part.” But, thankfully, God never wanted or expected that we would. Rather he invites and enables us to receive his blessings by trusting him to be true to his promises—true to his word—indeed, true to himself.

In and through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, our heavenly Father has given us the greatest blessing of all. Its focus is not physical health or wealth. Jesus did not heal everyone in his ministry. No one got wealthy, including Jesus himself. Some, in fact, gave up all their worldly possessions! The miracles Jesus performed were limited and temporary (even those he raised from the dead eventually died again!). These miracles were signs that pointed to the greatest blessing of all: redemption and reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ priority was to reconcile people to God so they would put their entire trust in him and lead lives reflecting his character. Paul refers to this Christ-likeness as “the fruit of the Spirit,” which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV). Paul exulted in “the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Romans 11:33) and proclaimed, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). That is the “health” and “wealth” that we are to seek and to receive by faith.

If our focus is on temporal, physical rewards, Christ becomes merely a means—a tool—to gain our own ends. A transactional gospel ignores Jesus’ warning about getting caught up in “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” (Matthew 13:22) that choke out the development of genuine, mature faith in our gracious God.

I could cite other scriptures, but I think I’ve made the point. GCI does not support or promote the health and wealth gospel. We believe that it distorts Scripture, conflicts with Jesus’ message of the gospel and threatens a right relationship with God. Please remind those who are tempted to embrace it of Paul’s warning that, “The grace of God… teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11-12, emphasis added). Also remind them of Jesus’ warning: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).

With love, in Christ’s service,

Joseph Tkach

Report on US camps

New Picture (7)As we look back on the summer camp season of 2013, we rejoice in all that God did in and through our 17 US Generations Ministries camps. We are particularly grateful for the generosity and excellent ministry of about 800 teen and adult volunteer staffers.

Much fruit

Kingdom fruit resulted as campers and staffers experienced a profound encounter with Christ in our camps. Many were baptized, dozens of new young leaders emerged and new camps were started. Stephen Webb, director of The Rock camp, commented: “We have learned the value of multiplication—starting new camps out of existing ones by raising up and sending new leaders.”

GenMin camps are powerful “incubators” of young leaders who not only serve at camp—many are integrated into leadership roles in their home churches. At SEP SoCal, older teen campers participated in ministry training—choosing from multiple training tracks including worship, drama, photography, public speaking and audio/visual/tech. Arrangements have been made for teachers to mentor their students following camp.

New PictureSeveral camps partnered with various churches and community groups to sponsor camps and to reach out to communities near and far. SEP Montana brought together 41 organizations, including ten denominations. SEP SoCal reached out by gathering “gently-used” T-shirts to distribute overseas.

Standard curriculum

This year’s GenMin camp curriculum, titled It’s Time, helped campers embrace God’s “kairos time” on a six-step journey: behold, believe, belong, become, behave and begin. The curriculum, posted at http://genmin.gci.org/Web%20Documents/Curriculum%202013.pdf, may be used by churches (for a series of sermons or studies) and by other camps.

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Camp reports

Following are brief reports from several of this year’s GenMin camps. A full list of camps and additional videos and pictures are posted at at http://genmin.gci.org/campministries.htm.


New Picture (2)2013 was SEP So Cal’s 12th year. They had 174 campers and 100 staffers, age 2 to 82. This intergenerational group was also multi-ethnic and interracial with Filipinos, African-Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Caucasians. 31% of the campers were first-timers and 26% of the staffers formerly were campers. About 70% of the campers received some sort of scholarship to help them attend this year. Thanks to the generous donors!

SEP So Cal
SEP So Cal

SEP Rockies logo

Here is a video showing SEP Rockies in session in the mountains of Colorado (view it on YouTube at http://youtu.be/R0J6m0C6s1A):


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Pathways staffers

New Picture (4)Pathways, held in Southern Ohio, had 104 campers and 67 staffers this summer (an increase of 14 staffers over last year). They have begun a junior staff mentoring program to enhance the camper-to-staffer development journey. Senior campers participated in life-equipping tracks including photography, drama, worship, American Sign Language (ASL) and leadership. Campers reached out to 20 disadvantaged children from the local community who were made campers for one day.


The Rock logo

After two years of praying, dreaming, planning, sweating and sometimes weeping, this new camp was born in the Sauratown Mountains of central North Carolina. 90 campers and 55 staffers shared the many facets of camp life. After daily chapel services, campers participated in paintball, field sports, zip line, arts and crafts (including blacksmithing), archery, swimming and high ropes.

New Picture (9)The final day of camp featured a formal banquet with white linen, fresh wildflowers and candles. Pastor Howard Blakeney spoke about the campers’ royal identity in Jesus. The evening ended with a dance.

New Picture (8)One of The Rock’s staffers, who had no previous exposure to GCI, was recruited from a local university. She noted feeling “overwhelmed” in being made to feel “a part of the camp family” from the moment she arrived. She is planning to volunteer again next year. Camp director Stephen Webb commented: “Watching the staff’s love for one another and their unity in service was perhaps my greatest joy.”

Numerous GCI pastors served on The Rock’s staff as counselors, chaplains and dining hall managers. For a slideshow of the camp on FaceBook, see https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=637113198554&set=o.567982006575966&type=2&theater.


Capture

After operating locally for six years, SEP Montana became a GenMin camp this year. Held at Holter Lake near Helena, the camp had 107 campers and 47 staffers representing ten area churches.

New Picture (10)Activities included tubing, jet skiing, Christian living, arts/crafts, paintball, sapphire mining, team building, wilderness skills, service projects and Montana animals in the wild sponsored by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. At a formal church service on Thursday night during camp, the campers were invited to Christ, invited to be prayed for and invited to write down their struggles and nail those to a 6-foot cross nearby. That service was followed the next day with a baptism service with parents present. Some of the campers will be baptized back home in their local churches. 24 kids and adults were baptized at the camp this year.

SEP Montana
SEP Montana

YES logo

YES camp, held in Lousiana has two sessions—one for pre-teens and one for teens. There were 60 campers in each session—the highest attendance to date, served by 40 staffers each session. Three of the campers were baptized. You can see these camp sessions on YouTube (teen session at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtW388IVRMI and pre-teen session at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqM9C4xuKoE).

Christian celebrations

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Joe and Tammy TkachDo you remember the song I Love a Parade? It celebrates our love for celebrations! Our calendars are filled with them—some national, some religious, some just bizarre. Did you know that January 6 is Sherlock Holmes’ birthday, that January 20 is Penguin Awareness day and that April 26 is Hug an Australian day? September has Video Game Day, Preserve the Ozone Day and Elephant Appreciation Day. Marking time with celebrations is as old as civilization itself.

Ancient pagans scheduled celebrations using various calendars. Perhaps the earliest is found in the cave paintings at Lascaux, France where time was marked using the phases of the moon. Ancient monuments in Central and South America and at Stonehenge in England marked time by observing the cycles of the sun and moon.

When God brought Israel out of Egyptian captivity and settled them in the Promised Land, he gave them a luni-solar calendar with annual festivals to remind them of the great events in which he intervened in their history and of the natural cycle of events that showed he alone was Creator. Since Israel was principally engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, the festivals centered on the harvests.

Israel’s sacred year with its festivals and holy days was determined by observing the phases of the moon, with Israel’s high priest serving as chief observer and calendar custodian. The exact method for determining new moons, the beginning of the new year and other days is not detailed in Scripture. It was passed down through the priests. Even though the temple in Jerusalem was not designed as an astronomical observatory, as were some pagan temples, it served as the base from where the Levitical priesthood decided, by observation, when new months and years began. Numbers chapters 28 and 29 detail the priest’s responsibility to perform sacrifices on new moons and annual festivals.

The Hebrew calendar was not intended to calibrate time for all people in all locations at all times. It was temporary, even as the tabernacle and temple from where it was issued were temporary. Jesus prophesied that the temple standing in his day would be destroyed. Matthew, Mark and Luke recorded Jesus’ prediction. Earlier, Israel’s prophets foretold the same thing: “Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets” (Micah 3:12).

When the temple was destroyed by the armies of Rome, the calendar went with it. However, even before that destruction, the rules for deciding calendar dates had become mired in political wrangling between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Those who rejected Jesus decided the calendar should be determined by calculation rather than by the observation of the high priest. All this may seem rather quaint in our “sophisticated” modern age, when we mark the year by the dates of seasonal sales at the mall!

It is not a sin to celebrate ancient events in Israel’s history, but in doing so—fair warning—you may become enmeshed in a contentious debate concerning how to schedule those celebrations. In any case, such celebrations most definitely are not required of Christians, nor do they have salvific value. Observing days does not make anyone righteous.

While some aspects of Israel’s festivals pointed to Jesus and his coming, their worship calendar was not intended to accommodate the dates for celebrating God’s pivotal intervention to save all humanity from its sins in the atoning ministry of Jesus. The Hebrew calendar is no longer used to mark “holy time,” especially since Jesus now lives in us making all our time holy. On the day of Pentecost, the symbol of God’s presence, the shekinah, bypassed the temple to alight on individuals.

Today, the people of God have a new calendar of events that centers on Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and promised return. Christians celebrate these events at different times and in different ways. Exactly when these events in the life and ministry of Jesus are celebrated is not what is most important. Calendars come and go, but Jesus and his saving acts remain forever. As Christians, we celebrate these acts and respond in joyful obedience to our Lord’s command to go into the world as salt and light, pointing to Jesus, the Living Water who alone quenches our thirst.

Your brother in Christ’s service,

Joseph Tkach

Baptism service

CrossRoads Christian Fellowship, GCI’s church in Tipp City, Ohio, held a baptism service on August 25. Eleven were baptized in a nearby river.

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One of those baptized, Tara Engel (at right in the picture above), wrote this in a Facebook post reporting on the service:

Finally back home, curled up and resting after an emotional but amazing morning. Went to church with my parents, hubby and son—a very powerful service after which we all went down to the river where 11 of us were baptized, myself included. The best part was that my son decided that he, too, wanted to be baptized and so he was baptized alongside me [see the picture below]. Words can’t describe how proud I am of that amazing young man and all the important decisions he has made recently…. We are so blessed to be part of the Crossroads Christian Fellowship in Tipp City— a group of diverse, unique and kooky folks who are NOT at all what I thought Christians were. Instead they are what Christians SHOULD be and I am so honored to know each and every one of them. If anyone had told me two years ago where my life would be today, I would hardly have believed it. I couldn’t ask for a greater sense of belonging, contentment and genuine peace. I also couldn’t ask for a better husband or son. Maybe it’s a little silly to put stuff like this on Facebook but I can remember so many times when I wondered how my life was going to unfold, or why things weren’t where I expected them to be, or whether I would ever be “happy”—life can change in the blink of an eye and sometimes we don’t even realize what is happening. When we are ready, God sends the people or situations or wisdom that will lead us to where we need to be. And if we fail to follow them the first time, He sends them again!! (Thankfully). We give up—too often—but God never does. And I am very, very grateful that He doesn’t.

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Pastors recognized

This update celebrates milestones in the lives of several GCI pastors and pastor couples. Our sincere thanks and congratulations to these faithful servants of God!

The following individuals were recently ordained as elders and/or commissioned to serve as pastors:

  • Lascan Sikosi, Namibia (six Namibian churches recently joined GCI; Lascan pastors them)
  • Murray Tiegen, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
  • Ruel Guerrero, Las Vegas, Nevada (Ruel was ordained in the Philippines in 1992 and recently commissioned to pastor the Las Vegas church)
  • Flora Mozon, Tampa/Lakeland, Florida
  • Randy Sorrentino, Orange County, California
  • Rodolfo Lomboy, Central Coast, California
  • Anthony Murphy, Central Coast, California
  • Danny Winger, Olympia, Washington
  • Sarah Miles, Denver, Colorado

During GCI’s recent International Denominational Conference, the following individuals were awarded for length of service as pastors.

DSC_0313

The following employed pastor couples (pictured above) have reached the 25-year service milestone:

  • Gordon and Marilys Green
  • Bill and Harriet Ford
  • Mark and Joanne McCulley
  • Manuel and Soledad Ochoa
  • David and Jonnie Perry
  • Warren and Lorraine Wilson
  • Daniel and Mary Zachariah

DSC_0284 DSC_0286

The following bivocational and part-time pastors (pictured above) have reached the 10-year service milestone:

  • Thomas Davis
  • Walter Deptula
  • Robert Ehlen
  • Joseph Franklin
  • Richard Gonzales
  • Frank Howard
  • John Howard
  • Tobe Johnson
  • James Lewis
  • Alfredo Mercado
  • Richard Ridgell
  • Stuart Rising
  • Barry Robinson
  • Heber Ticas
  • Leonard Tillotson
  • Eric Vautour

Death of Gloria Ortiguero

We are saddened to learn of the death of Gloria Ortiguero, wife of GCI-Philippines pastor Jerry Ortiguero. Jerry wrote this note:

Gloria is now free from the pain that wracked her body for months. The cancer had spread from her breast to her spine and brain. She died at a hospital in Baguio [Philippines] on August 20. Gloria turned 73 on July 3. Her last birthday was celebrated with our daughter from Dubai. My children want me to go back to Dubai and continue my apostolic mission there to my ten grandchildren. Life must go on—death is not the end but the pathway to life eternal.

GCI-Philippines director Eugene Guzon commented:

Gloria has been a tremendous inspiration to all of us as a mother and a wife and partner in ministry with Jerry. She has constantly demonstrated grace, dedication, enthusiasm and unconditional love. She will be greatly missed. We appreciate your prayers for Jerry and the rest of the family in this difficult time of loss.

Maceo Hampton

Hamptons
Maceo and Phoebe Hampton

Please pray for retired GCI pastor Maceo Hampton. Last Friday, August 23, Maceo, who serves the church in Livonia, Michigan, suffered a heart attack. A cardiac catheterization revealed that his coronary artery was blocked 90%. A medical stint was successfully inserted and he is now recovering at home. Other arteries were blocked 30% and 50%, but are being treated with medication. Maceo’s prognosis is good and the doctor is positive of a full recovery. Lifestyle changes have been recommended.

Maceo and his wife Phoebe are deeply grateful for all the prayers offered up to our merciful God. Please pray for complete recovery, renewed strength and return of his appetite.

Cards may be sent to:

Maceo and Phoebe Hampton
30225 Summit Drive #107
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-2446