THE TRUTH

A Newsletter of PURSUING THE TRUTH MINISTRIES
(Educate to Liberate!)
January 2004

Happy New Years!

I pray that you will prosper in the things that you do this New Year. I pray that you will grow closer to God this year like never before.

WHAT'S NEW!

Well we have moved our web hosting to another company. We moved the hosting of Pursuing the Truth Ministries' website to NetFronts (www.netfronts.com) and I am very pleased with the account. Hopefully everything still works on the website, though I don't see any reason why it shouldn't (except for the email forms). I checked everything (at least I think I did) and all seems to be functioning properly.

Well our friends in Singapore received the first of regular packages that we will send them. These packages includes various ministry materials for Pastor Chee to use in his ministry. We thank God for being used to minister to someone else overseas. There are many others that use our study materials and sermons for their personal and group Bible studies. This was the first that we have specifically and personally ministered to besides the website. Praise God!

Pursuing the Truth Ministries is going to step up its efforts to minister to people. God has given us the mindset to care for people. I had been praying for years and asking God how to manage a church without taxing the people. I wanted to know how to successfully operate a ministry that focuses on ministry. What model should we use? Unfortunately, many churches today use the model of the world to build a church organization instead of building the people. I will talk more about that later in this newsletter. The answer is simply to minister to people in whatever way that we can. We use the radio broadcast to minister, which began last year in September. Now we will use other methods to minister to others and some of the methods that we will use are traditionally used to advertise instead of minister by most churches. So stay tuned for some exciting things that we are going to do.

I also hope to begin chatting with some of you using the Chat feature of our website. This will be a scheduled thing where you could get online with me and we could talk virtually. I hope to have that setup in the near future. In the mean time if you'd like to chat with me then just send me an email at pastor@pursuingthetruth.org and I'll set things up.

Building the Church

By Pastor William Cunningham

I noticed some time ago that many churches are not really interested in ministry. I have been under pastors that were concerned more with building a church, but not building the people. Suffice it for me to say that these churches were like businesses where the president and CEO wanted to build his company so that he or she would maximize profits and make the most amount of money possible. I've even heard people say that you should run a church like a business. Though there are similarities on the organizational front, the differences are staggering in actuality, or at least they should be. Sure basic management techniques work in church as it does in a business-- or does it? I was reminded once that churches typically deal with volunteers so that managing them is far different then managing employees. So right there I found that you can't run a church like a business unless you hire ALL of the workers.

Another problem that I had with running a church like a business is that churches and businesses have very different objectives, or at least they should. A business has one primary objective, namely to make money. If a church has that objectives then something is very wrong with that church and its leaders. A church's main objective is...well let me show you a scripture.

Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV) "{18}And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. {19}Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, {20}teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen."

One thing that all Christian churches have in common is the call to minister the Word of God to people. In fact, we are called to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere. God has equipped all members of the Body of Christ to do just that in however God has gifted us. However, many churches are more focused on events, services, activities, and development that ministry suffers.

So we can build the church, the Body of Christ, by simply doing what God told us to do, namely spread the Gospel and preach the Word. We have to tell people about Jesus Christ. Instead of using direct mailing to advertise a church, we should use it to spread the Gospel. I am developing ways that we will use direct mailing to ask people provocative questions so that they would seek the answers. Many people and I mean many people are seeking for answers, but have given up on church. Why? Church failed them. Pursuing the Truth Ministries interacts with many of these people. I use the radio broadcast to teach the word and discuss the word. I spend virtually no time with advertising the church, though I should ask for donations at least.

My wife brought to my attention a new fad where churches advertise on the large billboards. Typically there would be a picture of the pastor and his wife, a slogan, and church contact information such as address, etc. Imagine the amount of money that these churches are putting out to put an add on a billboard! However, I have also seen billboards that were used by churches to send a message. They would simply have a scripture up with a statement and a basic one liner for the church location and/or phone number. Now that is affective because when you drive by the billboard you are forced to consider the question asked on it. That is far more effective then simply placing an ad.

So the key to building a church is to identify the church to be built. Are you building the church organization or people, namely the Body of Christ? If you are trying to get more members and build a larger congregation then go ahead with the business practices and marketing schemes. If you are trying to build the people so that they would come to believe in Jesus Christ and come to know God intimately then follow what God says. Our greatest example is the ministry of Jesus Christ and the acts of the Apostles. We can learn a lot by examining what those men and women did. They weren't trying to build a local church congregation. They weren't trying to get so many members. They were just trying to spread the Gospel as Jesus told them to do.

We should all do our part to build the people, which will build the church, the Body of Christ. Amen.

Health or Healing?

Pastor Bill

I have been learning a lot these days about health issues. Have you noticed an increase in natural foods and things pertaining to it? People are becoming more and more health conscious. However, their health consciousness is not in the traditional medical world. People's health consciousness is increasing in natural things. For example, many of the foods that we typically eat are killing us slowly. My wife have been doing a lot of research in this area and she found that many of the foods that we eat contain trans-fats or partially hydrogenated oils. Now I'm not going to even pretend that I know what all that is. However, I do know that it is bad for the human body. The problem is that we typically eat these things even in the foods that are considered healthy.

One could say, "God heal me" or "God grant me good health." Most times I could imagine that you would hear nothing back from God. The silence wouldn't be because God didn't say anything. It would be that God had already said it. He already gave you the answer before you asked the question. The problem is that you didn't hear it because you were too busy killing yourself slowly with your lifestyle. Research is showing that our lifestyle is the culprit for many of our illnesses. Things that we thought were caused genetically or by some other means are actually cause, at least in part, by our lifestyle.

What is the typical American lifestyle? We eat junk food and we don't exercise. We work and work and we run and run. We work real hard for temporal things that have little meaning and give little to no priority to our own health and welfare. It is a fact that people are living longer now. The problem is the condition that these older people will live in. Wouldn't you like to live to be a hundred years old and still able to get around without a wheelchair or walking stick (save for the use due to an injury). Wouldn't you like to be healthy and old. Many times when younger people think of older people they think of people in nursing homes who are incapacitated. That doesn't have to be you if you would do something now.

You should take a look at your lifestyle and see what God has already said to you about your health instead of merely asking God to heal you. People go to the altar time and time again in a prayer line for the same thing. Perhaps there is something else that you can do. Perhaps if you stopped eating the junk and putting death into your body then you would be more healthy. So many times we don't need healing. Instead we need health. This in turn means that we are going to have to change our lifestyle to include those things that are conducive to healthy living and eliminate those things that are conducive to death and disease. What do you say? Health or Healing? Why get healed if you will continue to do the same things. You'll be back in the same prayer line before long.

New Year's Resolutions

Pastor Bill

This is the time of year when people make new year's resolutions. Of course before long those resolutions are only memories. Why don't you make a commitment instead? Why don't you commit to getting closer to God. Simply begin reading your Bible. You don't have to read a lot at one time. Start small and work your way up to where ever you end up. Commit to some quiet time with the Lord. Don't make drastic changes, but instead make small changes that you can manage. Make these changes into habits, which in turn have a better opportunely to becoming a way of life for you. So resolve to get closer to God. I pray that by the end of this year that you would have a much more intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. Amen.

Well, God bless you always. Remember to eat, drink, and digest the word of God and know God for yourself. Be blessed and be free!

- Pastor William Cunningham