Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

2011-07-19T12:17:00.001-05:00

Resume for Ministry

2007-08-16T20:28:00.009-05:00

Currently reading for M.Div., graduation approaching!

Experienced in missions, evangelism, and counseling: Background in church planting, urban outreach, and prison work. To wit,

Five and a half years (1973-1980) in urban, and military, outreach & discipleship ministry with Shiloh /Youth Revival Centers, based in Eugene, Oregon, an outgrowth of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.

Three years (1977-1980) phone counseling at CBN phone counseling center. This afforded a great opportunity to minister to people in a very broad variety of needs, and sometimes to rejoice with them in wonderful “divine surprises” as well.

Fifteen years’ involvement in jail & prison work: variously in team ministries, three years county-level Prison Fellowship Angel Tree coordinator, personal counseling/evangelism, and teaching Bible studies inside the prison compound, over the period of 1984-1999

In 1993 I developed a plan for a residential prison aftercare ministry which, while that ministry failed to materialise, has influenced at least two ministries now in operation. I continued in prison work until 1999, teaching Bible studies in a State facility and doing "jail-bar counseling" at City and County lockups.

After a break for family issues, I am now at seminary and helping to build a new church outreach for African expatriates and refugees with one ministry, and preaching weekly to prisoners with another.
Motivated and personally committed to seeing lives built up and directed into a full and productive relationship with Jesus Christ.

Active, as a full-time seminarian, and part-time curate and evangelist, seeking to continually improve my vision, motivation, and insight. I have been blessed with the opportunity to tour the Anglican churches on Ireland this past summer, and before that to have served an assignment as supply preacher for a Nazarene congregation, and, since, preached regularly for an African congregation. before being replaced by a retiring seminary dean.

Versatile though not in a way to call attention to myself, but rather in seeking to be "all things to all men, if by any means I might win some," I have some experience of life within churches ranging from Southern Baptist to Roman Catholic, Pentecostal to Presbyterian. Each church tradition has its own language, its own definitions and “ways. I believe my familiarity with various of these can make me more useful in a broader variety of ministry settings.

I am in the Anglican tradition as an Episcopalian. We are experiencing some conflict at present, and it is through conflict, through answering challenges and through explaining the Faith to people of differing backgrounds, that the Church's theology has developed, and the Anglican Way has as complete a “kit” both (at its core) as may be found of a complete presentation of the Faith and the means to teach it to both minds and hearts.

Dedicated:
The Gospel of Christ is my one calling, and growth in His love and service my one aim; reaching families and individuals with the full counsel of God’s Word, and helping them to become complete in Christ by His Spirit and grow into all that the name of Jesus Christ really means.
By "full counsel of the Word" I mean the whole fabric of God's Word, systematically taught, bringing the Church into an ever-deeper participation in His holy love: Living, dying and rising to life in Christ through His Holy Spirit.

2007-08-16T20:22:00.001-05:00

My name is Robert, and I'm a slow learner. In a few minutes you'll see what I mean.
I grew up in a liberal Presbyterian church, and, as a child I was impressed with the story of young Samuel. As a boy he heard God's voice and thought it was his Eli, his guardian, speaking. Somehow the Lord used that as a figure to make it personal, to me, that He was calling me to Himself. As I got older, I developed a keen interest in fishing, sports, and pretty girls, and, well, Alabama has a good share of all three.
Also down South, there were folks I'd see in town from time to time, seemed to me to always dress in dark old-fashioned, clothing, They seemed to be in a big race to see who could keep from smiling for the longest. These folks were generally known as “Holiness,” being members of churches founded in a great, joyous awakening of the Faith back a hundred or so years before.
When I was about 18 I was reading in the Psalms, “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” I stopped and said, “What? Lord, what is the beauty of holiness? All I could see in that word was life as a mummy!
This was a God-ordained prayer! Around that time my own “devotional life” had no life to speak of, and at 19, I had bailed out of any conventional religion to explore the world of yoga, zen and psychedelics. After a year, the Lord called me to Himself in a really awesome and personal way, and set me into a really close fellowship where we lived and worked together. I was starting to see the answer to my question.
The church was a sort of a commune. It was a ministry house- one of a group scattered across the States. They were set up for getting the Gospel to the millions of young people that were on the roads and on the streets back then, and for sheltering, and teaching them. We offered “free food and lodging in the Name of our Lord,” and took jobs where we could all work together to uphold and encourage each other in the Lord through the day.
We would all get together for a prayer meeting in the living room every Saturday night. Early on in my time in that fellowship, after prayer meeting, the pastor prayed with me for the Lord to baptise me with His Spirit. The earth didn't shake, but I felt a sense of our Father’s love and acceptance flood me, and I knew I was His. At that particular time there was an unsaved guest, one of the many who passed through from time to time, staying there. He was on a hitchhiking tour West, and when I talked with him it seemed to really appeal to my own road-lust, and he seemed to be playing on that, looking to talk me into heading off with him. After the prayer I was just really feeling wrapped up in the Lord's Presence. I had gone down to the “brothers' dorm” when the guest walked over to my bunk. When I rolled over and looked at him, I saw him in a whole different light, like a sudden shift from envy to pity. He looked down and walked away As of that moment there was not even a question. By God’s grace I had seen through the temptation, and I saw no reason to even consider it.
You know, really, the whole discussion about the Baptism, or In-filling, with the Spirit is connected nowadays with gifts like tongues, healings, and prophecy. All these are valid gifts, but in the middle of the New Testament’s most in-depth discussion of the workings of the Spirit, Paul inserted a very important side note about the evidence of the Spirit: Jesus said we can judge a tree by the fruit it bears, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. Charity, as we read in 1 Cor. 13, is the most important thing: Since it is the direct result of the Lord working in our lives, and really impossible without Him, I’ve learned to read it, “Jesus-in-me.” “ Jesus-in-me suffers long, and is kind; Jesus-in-me. envies not; Jesus-in-me. vaunts not (my)self, is not puffed up, does not behave (my)-self unseemly, Jesus-in-me seeks not my own, Jesus-in-me is not easily provoked, Jesus-in-me thinks no evil; Jesus-in-me rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; Jesus-in-me bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Jesus-in-me never fails !”
Back in the '90's I worked part-time at a Southern Gospel radio station. Emmett, the manager, was a great guy, with a great mike voice. This job was such a blessing in that I got to listen to Gospel music, and meet some great people, and actually get paid for it!
There were some preachers there one time, holding a conversation. I heard one man point out that Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the Spirit not His fruits . The fruit, not fruits, of the Spirit is, not are, love.. Yes, I could see that, but didn't see what difference it made. I am a slow learner...! Two or three years later I was reading back over that passage and, with the Lord’s help, finally saw the difference. We sometimes hear talk about the fruits of the Spirit, like you can pick and choose your favorite. “I'll take a dozen joys, no longsuffering today, thank you. I don't think I need any meekness, a half-pint of goodness, and, well, I've got a party this weekend so maybe I'll hold off on the temperance 'til next week....” When Paul wrote this letter he didn't have commas, colons, or even periods or spacing like we use today, but when I read it it says the fruit (no S!) is, so either the whole list is the fruit, or I can look back at 1st Cor. 13 and see that everything that follows the word, love, is a sign of real love being there. In my Bible I marked in a colon after the word love, like to say, “note what follows!” With the colon there I don't have to change any of the words for the passage to make sense. Love, from God, is demonstrated through joy, peace, patience / longsuffering, gentleness, and the rest of these “features.” If the Holy Spirit of the God Who is love has His way in my life, then love will be the evidence. This lesson only took me two or three years to start to learn: Actually working it out might take forever!
Before the Lord saved me out of the drugs and religion I would smell a whiff of dope on the breeze and head upwind to see if I could get in on it. Right after that, my first response would be to head upwind just to tell them about Jesus. What is the beauty of holiness? I didn't realise it, but I was starting to understand the answer.
Back in the ministry house, one time a couple came to stay with us for a few days, and of course it was assumed that a guest was received like part of the fellowship- they slept at the house, ate with us at meals, and joined with us in worship and Bible study. Now this couple told us they were married- no matter to us, we didn't have any private rooms anyway. He made a profession of faith while they were there, she didn't. Once they got their apartment back she started coming over for the Bible studies, but he didn't. She gave her life to the Lord at that time, and said she couldn't have done it before because she was having to go along with his lie in saying they were married. Once a Christian she purposed to obey the Lord in their relationship and would only sleep on the couch, and then after a few days called the house to say she needed help moving out, that she wanted to move in with us. The pastor asked me to go over to escort her back to the house. I wasn’t there but a few minutes when her “boyfriend” came in from his job at the slaughterhouse. Now what I knew of this man was that he was a troubled, heavy-drinking, Vietnam veteran, and he was a big fellow. Now, he was coming home drunk, his girlfriend was packing her bags, and there was a 140# Jesus freak in there with her. Hmmm! I also knew the Lord was speaking to my own heart to assure me He had matters well under control. So as he was going on about all the men he had killed in 'Nam, what he could do with a knife, etc., my biggest trial was not grinning back at him too big when I knew the Lord was totally in charge, and I was getting the picture that he knew it, too! After a while he turned around and left, and I helped her carry her suitcases through the roughest part of the city as she began the next step in her new life as a daughter of the Most High God! What is the beauty of holiness? I was starting to understand the answer to my question.
So- what is the beauty of holiness? First off, what is holiness? Wow- trying to jam a life story testimony into this talk is one thing, but that’s a question that could take a few weeks to get running start at at answering, but for a quick sketch,
In the Law, a lot of art work was forbidden. No carved images, no representational art of any kind. In the Temple, though, you would find bright colours, and all kinds of artistic beauty, and bright music as well. The High Priest, a picture of Jesus, would wear bright stones on a breastplate, representing all of the people of God being next to his heart, and on his head was a large, very visible hat, with a slogan written on it. It didn't say, “Go Leafs,” or “John Deere,” or “I'm With Stupid:” It said, “Holiness Unto the Lord.” Holiness to the Lord was the main theme of the Temple. It was all centered on the part called The Holy of Holies, the one place on Earth where you might find a man standing in the very Presence of God!
Not that it could just be any man, but a man whom God had chosen, who had prepared himself, who had separated himself to the Lord, from worldly distractions, whose sins were covered by the holy sacrifice, and who was meeting with God at the appointed time God had chosen. When Moses met with God on the Mountain his face glowed from the encounter. The New Testament promises us that, by His Spirit, we can keep our focus on the Lord and the Spirit will transform us from the “glory,” the appearance, of what we used to be to the very glory and likeness of Jesus.
When all that gets down to you and me, it’s all about the very nature of Jesus showing through from deep within you and me. How can this happen?
If something is holy, then it's set apart for a special purpose. An electrician could say an electrical circuit is “holy” if the breaker is set aside, say, for one computer, but they say it's “dedicated.” The “holiness” folks I mentioned before were holy- they were set apart- but maybe some more for their tradition than God's glory. The Bible says the marriage bed is holy, and that's probably the best picture we have of what the word really means. What it's saying is that in God's plan, the husband and the wife must be fully and totally loving each other, fully separated from any ties with anyone else, and fully dedicated to each other's pleasure.
Another picture is of sonship. We can only be the son of one father
When I was a boy, I really prized the times spent with my Dad. Mostly it was hunting, or fishing. Not a lot got said on that fishing boat: It might've scared the fish. Hunting was about the same, except it's cold out there. At the same time at the Presbyterian church, we learned about and sang about a great and distant God Who predestined all things according to His own transcendent wisdom, as on very long puppet strings, as if He were, “untouched by the feelings of our infirmities.”
Some people had told me that they had a hard time relating to God as “Father,” because of a bad example their earthly fathers had given them. I heard them say that, but kind of figured there might be a bit more in the picture. Just a little while ago it hit me that a major hole in how I understood God to be was about the shape of my Dad with a fly rod in his hand, or with his twelve-gauge, looking the other way. I knew that God loves me, well, He loves everybody, right? And I knew that he knows my thoughts, and that he thought about me more times than there are grains of sand in the sea, but I had written that all off as going with the territory of His being infinitely wise and powerful. Kind of like the scene from Exodus where God's presence is brooding over Mt Sinai, with lightnings and flaming clouds. But even then, part of how God announced His coming to Moses, He didn’t send angels before Him to announce His coming like a royalty might have their heralds to go before, He announced Himself to Moses, more like a friend at the door. He wanted Moses, and us, to know just what kind of God He is, and started off saying that He is, “..merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,...” If I’m going to show mercy or goodness, if I’m going to suffer long with somebody, I’m going to be going out of my way to do that; but that is His way. God loves us, each one of us, individually.
Most married men think know our own wives pretty well, and we love them according to the neat stuff we know about them, but God loves us, period. Not just what we do, or how we smell... but He loves us- He delights in us- you, and me! And wants to spend time with us. When we have little kids in the house, there's often not a lot that that 4-yr-old knows that his daddy doesn’t, but don't we get a kick out of hearing all about it just the same? If the kid is trying to do something just a little bit out of his ability, don't we get a kick out of helping, or even giving him a boost so that he might even think he did it “all by himself?”
And we love to watch that kid grow up, and to be there to help him grow up, don't we? And we like to hear that our son looks just like us, or is learning to do things the particular way we do them, even if it's a little thing like the way the kid walks, how he talks, or stands. The same way the Lord puts His “mark” on us: The word most used in the Bible for this mark is, “seal.” The book of Romans tells us that God set His “seal” on Abraham with the sign of circumcision. Paul told the Corinthians that they were the seal of his ministry; and in 2nd Timothy, that, “..the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are His. And, Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” The seal of the Spirit on our hearts is just that- His mark on our lives: That we belong to the Lord, and that we no longer live for our own pleasures and preferences, but for our Redeemer.
I had a foreman one time who was living a life of blatant sin. He "suffered" from what we might I call, “BBS.” Big Boy Syndrome. The big kid that, growing up, was doted on by his Mama, feared by the other boys, and lusted after by the girls. He had deserted his wife and children and was living with another woman on the other side of the same small town. Even though I never (right or wrong..) confronted him about any of that, he complained to me one day at lunch, “You never let me do what I want to do!” God's “seal” was showing through, and putting a taste of the fear of God in this big boy's heart, when all I was doing was my job!
When I look at how the word, “seal,” is used in the Bible, it most often fits the picture of a signet ring, or the imprint of a ring. The Prodigal Son's heart was bitter against his dad when he was out in the world, and it had been bitter against him at home as well, or he would have never told his father that he couldn't wait for his funeral. After he repented, set that bitter attitude behind him and submitted himself to his father, his father then gave him a ring showing that he was approved by the father and shared in his father's authority!
I used to look at the whole Purity thing as some kind of impossible goal that we can only wish for, but would God command us to do something impossible except that He had made it possible? When Jesus sent the Disciples out to preach, heal, and cast out devils, did they stop off at the nearest Tim's to discuss what He really meant by that? They went forth and obeyed Him; and they came back: Rejoicing at the great power they had seen demonstrated in the Name of Jesus, that, “even the devils were subject” to Him! Do we imagine that God would not give us the power to harness our own imaginations? Of course He would- He, “..is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us!” Eph. 3.20
Jesus said one sign of His soon coming would be, “Men’s hearts failing them for fear.” One thing that we always have to deal with in these days is fear. We fear bills, and mortgage payments, the weather, other drivers,... We fear for our children, our parents- our families; We fear for our jobs, and we fear the effects of fear. We might call it different names- stress, anxiety, life's frustrations, road rage, or just responsibility, but whether we are talking about facing immediate death, or the daily grind of bills, meetings, and deadlines, our Lord, Jesus, has given us two solid answers. Time fails for me to tell all the different stories of how the Lord had brought me through fearful or stressful situations, and I could give plenty more examples of when He tried to but I just couldn't manage to let Him, but Jesus' first answer is to give us understanding of the nature of fear and how to approach it. The main principle is that right relationship with God that gives us the right perspective to know that whatever threats we face in this world, the Living God, “whose we are” is the real threat. That's hard language in an age when all the talk is about a God of only love, acceptance, and forgiveness Who ever lives to bolster our self-esteem, but it truly is a “fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God,” “..for our God is a consuming fire!” Once He had made that point, our Lord told the same disciples, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give to you the Kingdom of Heaven.” That gives us the doctrine, in a military sense, concerning fear. The second answer, the application, comes from the boldness, the joy and the courage, that comes from the fullness of the Holy Spirit within us when we are, in fact, filled with the Spirit. Peter and John went face to face with the Sanhedrin, the Israeli Supreme Court and legislature all in one, and the Sanhedrin backed down. Timid Peter, just before that, had stood out in front of thousands of mocking party-goers and proclaimed the News of Jesus' resurrection, and didn't hold back the part about the crowd's own guilt in His death, and three thousand from the crowd were saved. Nineteen hundred-some years later, one little Jesus Freak led by the Spirit, backed down an angry, drunken, butcher in his own living room. God does not change.
All this goes with the promise in 2nd Timothy that, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound (or pure) mind.” The Spirit He gave us at the moment we confessed Christ as our Lord, the same Spirit Who baptised us into Christ, is the same Spirit He promised to baptise us with as we give ourselves wholly over to Him, as we worship our Lord, and seek to do and to know His will fully in our lives.
So, what is the Beauty of Holiness?
I.That God loves us! Not only that His official position, being that “God is love” and all that, but He purely does love us, fervently, out of a pure heart. He loves spending time with us, and He loves growing us up in His love.
II.God wants to make us pure, and free from, “every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us,” and,
III.God wants to give us boldness, in this life- confident of His love, and with a pure conscience, empowered by His Spirit, to be witnesses- living proofs to the world of the fullness His salvation!

Will Preach for Jesus!

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

Resume for Ministry