The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

Christian Life

Church Growth Patty Cake: An Allegory

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. (Col 1:28)

And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim 2:2)

To my Islamic brother here from Italy, I would say I’m not really interested in inter-faith dialogue; I’m interested in inter-faith projects… we brought in three imams, we brought in three Catholic priests, we brought in three evangelical pastors, and we brought in three Rabbis and we said, “What can we do about AIDS?” And we started on some common ground on those issues; what can we do that we all care about? (Rick Warren)1

It is the middle of the third quarter at the Home Team Football Stadium. The score is tied at 32 and the audience is tense as it could be anyone’s game at this point. Perhaps a new strategy could tip the odds in Home Team’s favor.

Away Team has the ball. The center snaps, the quarterback tries to pitch the ball to the halfback but Outside Linebacker clobbers him into a fumble, which Safety recovers and runs in for a touchdown followed by a successful extra point. High-fives abound as the scoreboard now reads 39-32. There is a kickoff and Home Team is back on defense.

In Home Team’s huddle, the players discuss devising a new strategy. “Wow! That was great!” says Cornerback. “Did you see all of the high-fives? It feels so good to give high-fives. And look at the scoreboard. We’re winning! Isn’t it interesting that the more successful we are, the more high-fives we give? Maybe we need to adjust our strategy to focus more on high-fives.”

Safety responds, “I agree that high-fives are nice, but let’s not forget that the reason for the high-fives was that Outside Linebacker caused a fumble and I scored a touchdown. If we can keep this up, then high-fives will be inevitable.”

Defensive End says, “I like what Cornerback is saying. I tell you what, on the next play, everyone will do the normal thing, but he and I will high-five each other the whole time. Let’s see how that goes.”

Away Team tries for a pass, but does not succeed. Back in the huddle, Defensive End and Cornerback are excited.

“Wow! We were able to high-five each other twelve times and Away Team didn’t move a single inch!”

“That would be because Away Team didn’t catch the ball. Haven’t you ever read the Rule Book?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We can’t keep going by some old Rule Book, especially if we have a new way to do things that clearly works! Come join us, Outside Linebacker.”

They line back up, but this time after the ball is in motion, Outside Linebacker joins Defensive End and Cornerback in high-fiving each other while the rest of Home Team is left to fend for themselves. Away Team takes advantage of the weakness and runs the ball past the high-fivers. Safety manages to tackle the carrier after a 15-yard loss. First down.

“What happened?”

“We only did 10 high fives this time, where were you, Outside Linebacker?”

“We need another adjustment. It takes two people to high five and if we have three, then we will end up getting in each other’s way. Let’s bring in more people to do high-fives, but this time we will stand in a circle and concentrate on each other instead of the read of the game. Let’s try singing ‘Patty Cake’ to keep the rhythm going.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupts Safety, “you are departing from the Rule Book. Let’s play this game the right way as we always have. The Rules say that at the end of the game, it is the scoreboard that matters, not high-fives.”

Cornerback responds, “You know, Safety, you are such a hypocrite. You yourself admitted to enjoying high-fives and now you want to prevent others from enjoying them. I think that if you search your feelings, then you would know that you can’t take this Rule Book literally. But don’t take my word for it: after the last play, I overheard some guys from Away Team say that they were glad that we are doing the high fives. It’s bad enough that you choose some silly Rule Book over your feelings and your own teammates even, but here is outside confirmation that our way is better.”

Home Team returns to the line of scrimmage and upon the hike of the ball, the left defensive tackle and guard join in the group high-fives as Away Team carries the ball into the end zone without a scratch. The Away Team fans rejoice as their team runs in a two-pointer.

The score is now 39-40.

There is confusion on the Home Team sideline as the defense delivers their news to the rest of the team. “It was great! Do you hear all of that cheering? We high-fived 63 times!”

Right Guard asks, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, we don’t go by the Rule Book anymore. We play Patty Cake now. Here, have some Kool-Aid.”

Left Offensive Tackle takes the squirt bottle and after taking a drink says, “Oh that sounds awesome! I read some of the Rule Book back in High School. It was a drag. This new system sounds much better. I mean, it’s working, right? Let’s do it!”

As the game continues, more and more players from Home Team join the movement to play Patty Cake as the others play football around them. What started as an extreme idea by a defensive Cornerback slowly eats away at the entire left. Then the center. Then slowly into the right. The Right Guard and the Safety, formerly the protector of the ball and the last line of defense, are now seen as a fundamentalist minority that is hung up on some silly old Rule Book.

It is now the fourth quarter. The scoreboard reads 39-236, but Home Team boasts of 2,378 high-fives. Both Away Team and Home Team’s Patty Cake circle are equally convinced that they are winning. If success is measured by an organization’s ability to achieve its own goals, then one could say that they are both winning. But, then again, if success is measured by a Rule Book that is supreme, then Home Team is going to look silly at the end of the game when only the scoreboard is considered.

Fortunately, the minority members of Home Team who persevere will finally be recognized. It will not be pleasant in the meantime, but the more bitter it is now, the sweeter it will be then.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. (1 Cor 9:24)

Explaining Titus 1:6 in the Most Redneck Way Possible

I was in Mississippi the other day and a friend told me a story that seems rather characteristic of the Southern United States. He said that when his sons were young, he would tell them that they could play with snakes out in the yard, so long as they weren’t venomous snakes. After he issued the rule, whenever his sons would find a snake, they would pick it up, take it to him, and ask, “Is this one venomous?”

For some reason, it seems that in the South we have better snake stories that in other parts of the world. I remember sitting around a table at Whataburger in Texas with some old guys and they had some great snake stories to tell… But, we aren’t here to exchange snake tales today.

We’ve recently received an inquiry about the qualifications of overseers in Titus 1:5–9:

The reason I left you in Crete was to set in order the remaining matters and to appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, with faithful children who cannot be charged with dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer must be blameless as one entrusted with God’s work, not arrogant, not prone to anger, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy for gain. Instead he must be hospitable, devoted to what is good, sensible, upright, devout, and self-controlled. He must hold firmly to the faithful message as it has been taught, so that he will be able to give exhortation in such healthy teaching and correct those who speak against it.

This is a controversial passage, because we see things like “the husband of one wife” and “faithful children who cannot be charged with dissipation or rebellion.” Wait a minute, isn’t this verse about choosing an overseer to serve in local church leadership? Why are we examining his divorce record and children instead of only examining the candidate himself?


Let’s return to the snake analogy. All snakes are good and have some role in their environment. For example, the harmless prairie kingsnake helps control the rodent population. Rattlesnakes are beautiful (at least in my backwoods redneck mind, anyway), but since they are venomous, they are dangerous for children to play with.

If the rule is, “Don’t touch venomous snakes,” then a child is likely to pick up a rattlesnake to take to dad and ask, “Is this one venomous?” and perhaps be bitten in the process. If instead the rule is, “Don’t touch any snakes,” then the child may miss out on playing with a kingsnake, but he won’t be bitten by a rattlesnake in the meantime.

God doesn’t want venomous personalities in authority over the local church. Just as an old redneck can look at a snake’s head and tell if it is venomous, God can look at a man’s heart and tell if he’s venomous, but the ones who actually need to make the discernment do not have the insight that the father/Father has, so simplified rules provide a safety net from the venomous ones. The guidelines set in Titus 1:5–9 protect the church by barring those who have divorces or rebellious children from serving in this capacity.

This does not mean that every man who has had a divorce is a bad husband, or that every man with a rebellious child is a bad father. There could be a host of reasons for the problems at home. Just as forbidding a child to play with any snake protects him even if it forbids playing with harmless snakes, forbidding any divorcé from serving in leadership protects the church even if it forbids some potentially great leaders in the meantime.

Several years ago, I heard of an unfortunate example of a church playing with a venomous snake. A manipulative man had just run his second marriage into the ground and alienated his children. He then moved to a different city where he threw a pity party for himself and gained the trust of a local church and was given a position of leadership over a ministry committee.2 It was not long before this man had caused a schism within the committee and alienated several church members from the ministries where they had been so cheerfully serving. It is a trend with this man: he splits his family, he splits God’s family; he alienates his children, he alienates God’s children.

In retrospect, it seems apparent that the man is a rattlesnake, but at the time, perhaps it was difficult to discern whether he was dangerous or not (after all, a good manipulator will be able to fool those around him). Perhaps a better thing to do would have been to put the man in a less authoritative position, perhaps as a committee member, rather than committee leader. By no means should being divorced or having rebellious children prevent someone from serving in the local church. We are all broken and have ugly pasts. It’s just that men in this particular category are restricted in their service from being in the role of overseer.

Regardless of your past, there is a way you can be serving right now.

Should We Call People, ‘Baby Killers?’

We who served in Iraq generally did not have as bad of homecomings as those who served in Vietnam, but there is one story that I would like to recall in light of recent events. The year would have been 2007 (I was in Iraq from Jan-Dec 2005) and I had a friend, Horace, who was in the practice of going off on rants about how bad George W. Bush and the Iraq war were. Horace was 62 years old, so he would have been of that generation of Vietnam protestors. He knew that I was an Iraq veteran and one day during his periodical anti-Bush rants he turned and called me a baby killer. Now, in his mind, I’m sure he really felt justified. I mean, here he is, obviously speaking the truth about that rascal George W., and here I am, a veteran who served under him. Surely by calling me a ‘baby killer,’ I would feel so terribly about all of the bad things I had done and join his cause in standing for what’s right… It didn’t work out that way; instead, Horace came off as being angry, hurtful, and self-righteous. He didn’t know what I had been through or what I had done. He was judging me from a standpoint of ignorance. Perhaps that made him feel good about himself, a ‘non-baby killer,’ but if he wanted me to join him in his anti-war antics, then calling me a ‘baby killer’ only pushed me away.[Read More]

Christian Life Hack: When Forgiveness Is Hard

The biblical mandate to forgive

God wants us to forgive (see 2 Cor 2:5-8; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13). Sometimes forgiveness can be hard, but that does not absolve us from our responsibility as Christians. We know that while believers will not stand before the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev 20:11-15), we will stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ to receive compensation for what we have done in life (2 Cor 5:10). If we don’t forgive people now, then we could be setting ourselves up for failure at this judgment. James writes:

So speak ye, and so act, as those that are to be judged by the law of liberty; for judgment will be without mercy to him that has shewn no mercy. Mercy glories over judgment.  (Jas 2:12-13 DBY)

[Read More]

A Tale of Two Houstons

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the 1960s, a time which ushered in what sociologists would identify as “The Consciousness Revolution.” America was due for an awakening. Just as 80 years prior had been the “Third Great Awakening,” which followed the “Second Great Awakening,” decades prior and the first “Great Awakening” of the 1720s-30s which eventually formed the basis of the American Revolution. Every generation of Americans goes through some kind of an awakening. Perhaps this trend began with the “Puritan Awakening,” which itself came from the previous generation’s “Protestant Reformation” in Europe.

For centuries before and after the American Revolution, these awakenings seemed to revolve around the Christian worldview. When I look at the Reformers, Puritans, and missionaries who came out of the previous awakenings, I recognize that, on many issues, we aren’t on the same page, but at least we are all generally reading from the same book. This is not true of the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s. For some reason, America was breaking its long held tradition of Biblicism and we are paying that price today.[Read More]

Three “don’ts” for aspiring missionaries

Ten years ago, I wanted to be a missionary in Eastern Europe. Today, I am a missionary in Eastern Europe. It’s been a tough journey to get here and a lot of people who start on this path don’t get this far. The reason that I am a missionary and others are not is not because I am something special. I would humbly submit that many who wanted to become missionaries but ended on a different path are better Christians than I am. I look up to several of them.

I’ve made many mistakes along the way (we all do) and I managed to survive them somehow, but there are also a couple of mistakes that I’ve avoided, which I would like to share with aspiring missionaries.

So, if you want to become a missionary, then are here are three things that you don’t want to do.

#1: Don’t get into debt

Several years ago, a young woman approached me after a Bible study and told me that God was calling her to go on a mission trip to Africa. She also believed that He was calling her to spend $5,000 to go on a two-week tour of Israel with her pastor. So, she needed to raise the $5k for Israel, another couple thousand to fly to Africa, and another monthly sum while she was away in Africa.

The monthly sum that she needed to raise was not just for her work and cost of living in Africa. Actually, most of the monthly support she needed was to cover debts in America. She was in the hole from getting a college degree that would take her until she was in her 30s to pay off if she were to get a job in her field of studies. She also had car payments to make and the car dealership was not going to stop sending bills just because she was on another continent.

I’m not here to question this sister’s heart. Personally, I find it difficult to concur that God was calling her to skip out on her responsibilities, but that’s beside the point. The bottom line is that she wanted to be in missions, but her cost of support was greatly increased because of financial debts. With the amount she raised to cover her student loan and car payments, she could have done significantly more work in the field.

Student loans often prohibit people from going on the mission field entirely. A lot of missionaries here in the field don’t even have a degree and they are doing a great job. If you want to be a missionary and your choices are either to go to seminary or to live debt-free, then I recommend choosing a debt-free life. As a veteran, I was blessed to have the G.I. Bill cover my bachelor and master degrees and I’m currently writing my doctoral dissertation at a good seminary that’s dedicated to providing the best education at the lowest cost.

#2: Don’t expect there to be a job opening

If you can find a good spot for you that’s already available on the mission field, then that’s great!

The reason that jobs in missions are available is because Christians stepped up to needs around the world with the good-old entrepreneurial spirit. But, if you care about doctrine, then those job opportunities suddenly become restricted. If you have a passion for a particular demographic, then the opportunities are restricted further. Once you narrow down what exactly you want to do, you might find that nobody in the world is doing that. And that can actually be exciting! But, it can also be scary. It means you might need to be the guy who steps up to the need and starts his own venture.

That’s essentially how Grace Abroad came to be. We have a passion for free grace and dispensational translation, teaching, and outreach. Nobody else out here does. The choice was either to start Grace Abroad, or wait until somebody else did. And believe me, that would have been a very long wait.

But, we can’t just snap our fingers and expect a ministry to magically appear. That brings me to our third “don’t.”

#3: Don’t be afraid of work

If you don’t like to work hard, then being a missionary isn’t for you. Period.

Sometimes, that work comes in forms that you wouldn’t expect. When I finished my degree in Russian in 2010, I couldn’t find any ministries in Eastern Europe that were going in the same direction that I was (like I said, don’t expect there to be a job opening). So, I decided to move to Ukraine, get a secular job, and build a ministry from the inside (which is something I probably could not have done if I was in debt).

I don’t really like teaching English, but it’s something I’m good at and can pay the bills with. You don’t need to like your job, but you do need to eat, so I taught English in a secular school as a placeholder to get me by in Ukraine as I went to seminary and got a better feel for the needs and opportunities here on the ground. We call this work, “tent-making,” because the Apostle Paul made tents to get by when his funding was low.

Anyhoo, if you want to be a missionary overseas, it’s a good idea to have a “tent-making” skill. Teaching English is a popular choice, because we missionaries are often teachers who know English. Other good choices include IT work, translation, or ghost writing. If you can freelance it, you can use it.

There’s also a lot of work in ministry that doesn’t look like ministry work. When we think about “ministry work,” we typically think about teaching people from the Word of God. We don’t typically think about resolving project budgets, scheduling meetings about translation projects, filling out the IRS paperwork at the end of the year, typesetting brochures, discussing prices with print shops, staying on the printer to make sure he does his job, etc. Ministry is not for the lazy – just ask your pastor! But, even with the not-so-ministry-looking work, there is absolutely nothing that I would rather be doing with my life.

Conclusion

There are several “don’ts” for the aspiring missionary, but here are three big ones that I’ve noticed. By the way, if you are thinking about joining ministry and have any questions, by all means, feel free to holler at us through the contact section.