Money & Mission in 3-D (part 3 of 3)

In part 1 of this series we looked at the subject of “D”ollars in the life of a Baptist association. in part 2 we considered just a few of the actual and potential “D”eliverables that network dollars can help provide to partner churches and leaders reaching others for Christ close to home and around the world. Today I conclude this “Money & Mission in 3-D” series looking to the future dimension of our network.

The DREAM

Is it outrageous for women or African Americans to vote? No way, but that’s not always been true! There was a time when that notion would’ve seemed ludicrous — even to women and black people themselves. But a dream fed a desire which fueled a determination to labor with great discipline until that dream became reality, even though many of the first to dream it never saw it come true.

Abraham, our great forefather in the faith, was a dreamer. God gave him a dream and then the desire, the determination, and the discipline to forge ahead by faith towards the great blessing that he and his descendants would bring into the world: the Messiah! To the skeptics, Jesus (that very Messiah) says in John 8:56,

“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

Abraham saw it, but not with his eyes; he touched it, but not with his hands! Abraham rejoiced through faith and hope in a Savior God revealed to him in a dream. And, though imperfect in his pursuit, and though unrealized in his lifetime that dream defined the rest of Abraham’s earthly existence—and still does! Perhaps the greatest dreamer in Scripture is Joseph. A lot of good his dreams did him, huh!—at least at first! Scorned and scolded, thrown into a well, sold into slavery, presumed dead. Heartache and hardship are the common lot of dreamers.

Dreams are audacious. They are absolutely ridiculous and even offensive to non-dreamers and skeptics.

Can I be transparent for a bit?

Like many of you, I’m a dreamer. But (also like many of you) I battle discouragement and defeatism in some measure almost daily. As a family man, I have hopes and dreams of a strong and vibrant marriage; I long to see my kids growing physically, spiritually, and emotionally. As a pastor I dream of a church on fire for Jesus, emboldened through prayer, and reproducing through energized disciple-making and church planting. But in each of these capacities the day-to-day nicks and scrapes of life and ministry—along with occasional body-blows—crush my spirit and consume my energy as a husband, father, and also as a pastor. These dreams require desire (which I often slake with junk like TV, social-media scanning, Oreos, and other quick comforts), determination (which often crumbles in the face of opposition), and discipline (which ebbs and flows in highs and lows).

My pursuit is highly imperfect, yet my dreams for home and church persist. So I must persevere.

The same is true of my dream for Cleveland Hope!

In December of 2017 a small group of representatives (nine I believe) from our association met at Trinity Christian Church in Bedford. The purpose was to vote on me. Deborah and I were there with our (then) 3 year-old son Isaac. To this day I am humbled—near tears as I type this sentence—to have received that small gathering’s unanimous call to lead our association into the future.

Abraham’s dream didn’t come true right away—in fact he didn’t live to see it. Joseph’s dream took a couple of decades to be realized with a lot of suffering and loneliness along the way. Like both of these saints, my dream for our city and region is certainly bigger than myself; God is up to things I can’t even begin to comprehend. But I want to share with you some things I see… some things I dream.

• I dream of Cleveland being a place brought from hopelessness to hope in Christ, and of our little network of churches and leaders being highly instrumental in this move of God.

• I dream of 60 churches today being 120 churches five to ten years from now, 200 (or more) in fifteen years, etc. I dream of these churches spanning every format from mega to micro, from thousands to thirty to three gathered around Scripture to the glory of the Savior with an intent to reproduce disciples and worshiping communities on every block and backroad (yes, there are some backroads) in greater Cleveland.

• I dream of Cleveland being both a mine of and a magnet to young ministers and missionaries. 1) A Mine - no young person should grow up in any of our churches wondering where and how he or she might grow as a gospel leader ready for kingdom deployment when God sends them out. Every church a shaping, sharpening, sending church! 2) A Magnet - I see this city and our churches being the talk of Christian college and seminary dorm rooms: “Hey, have you heard about Cleveland and the ministry internships and residencies available there? Every one of their churches has members with spare bedrooms and free lodging for summer or semester interns; some of them even have spare cars! And I hear Cleveland interns even get a stipend!”

• I dream of every Cleveland Hope pastor considering himself not just a shepherd but a professor and coach, trained together and entrusted with building young leaders, coming together on a monthly rotation to host intern cross-training cohorts in all the disciplines of spiritual formation, ministry and mission all coupled with hands-on, local church experience.

• I dream of a staffed (paid and volunteer) multi-purpose resource center in a sizeable re-purposed downtown or near-downtown facility complete with offices, classrooms, meeting rooms, a resource library available for every pastor and church leader for browsing and borrowing, showers and bunkrooms for visiting mission teams, warehousing for outreach materials, food, clothing, and other items donated by churches, corporations, and other agencies for helping the hurting, and garage space for a small fleet of vans available to our churches for mission trips and outreach purposes.

• I dream of business owners and corporate donors saying, “We see what you’re doing to serve this city and we want to buy in!” I see CEOs making Jesus their CEO!

• I dream of Cleveland being a global launch-pad, a place, a network, churches and leaders so alive and aflame for the gospel that northeast Ohio can’t contain it’s spread.

• I dream of every foreign people group represented in Cleveland being engaged in Christian hospitality by our churches with a view to their salvation and the transmission of the gospel to their countries of origin.

• I dream of an annual scholarship available to offset travel costs for every pastor who leads his people on mission.

• I dream of having the sharpest brotherhood of biblically-trained pastors of any association in the Southern Baptist Convention because we invest in our leaders’ theological education.

• I dream of an network of churches and leaders held together by doctrinal unity and mutual moral & ethical accountability.

If you’re tempted to think this is impossible, STOP IT! Just go ahead and admit that it totally IS… for us.

Even at my very young age of 43, like Abraham, I feel the years creeping and time slipping away, and am tempted to wonder if the dreams God has given me will come to pass in my lifetime. In my dark and discouraged moments, like Joseph, I feel lonely, forgotten, and unloved, like I’m looking at the world and my dreams through a tiny disc of light at the top of a pit, and I wonder how, when, or even if God will come through.

Another moment of honesty…

As I near the end of this post, I’m tempted to trim some of the “I dream” bullet points above. My little heart can’t bear the thought of you reading this, rolling your eyes or snickering at my “pie-in-the-sky” vision for our network. Cleveland Hope is behind on dollars already for the year. We’re below target on deliverables. But can a God who calls a Mesopotamian geriatric to father His new nation and who takes a Jewish runt from prisoner to potentate of Egypt not do great things through us and among us, all for the same redemptive purpose and glory of the same Messiah that Abraham and Joseph looked for?

Ministry and Mission are trying and tiring endeavors. But I’ll tell you this: nothing is more tiring and hopeless than a dreamless ministry and mission.

I want and need your partnership—I crave it! I want you to get in on the promise of 1 Corinthians 9:8,

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

So much and so many of God’s resources for the dreams He’s implanted in our hearts for our churches, our network and our future gospel impact are latent and untapped right under our noses.

I was recently shown some demographics from across Ohio outlining zip codes with no Southern Baptist Churches present. Those zip codes were arranged by population as follows: 1) over 20k, 2) 15-20k, and 3) 10-15k. Guess what. Of the 41 zip codes in the “over 20k” population category across Ohio, 14 were in greater Cleveland (including 6 of the top 10, with Lakewood coming in at #1—a city of 52,804 people in our association with no SBC church). The total population of just the Cleveland-area zip codes over 20,000 people with no SBC church is 484,618. Add to that all the smaller zip code population categories with no SBC church and the number jumps to 627,261. That’s well over half a million people in greater Cleveland with no Southern Baptist church in their zip code. Some of those people may be Southern Baptists who commute to nearby zip codes to church. Great! But I never want to hear “We have enough churches…” That will never, ever, ever be true!

Our dreams have to be bigger not smaller. The potential and the resources for a gospel wildfire are all around us like dried leaves under a hot October sun. We carry the match of the good news; may the Holy Spirit of God graciously blow on it as we faithfully strike it and drop it into hearts and lives all around us every day. And may the growing and glowing light of churches and a city set on fire for Jesus flicker and send hot embers to the darkest parts of the world as we labor expectantly and TOGETHER until He returns!

One way to take an active part in strengthening Cleveland Hope is to join our Executive Leadership Team. Each church is permitted one seat on the ELT. If your church doesn’t have a representative, your seat at the table is vacant! ELT members may be pastors or laypersons. Notify me today at davery@clevelandhope.com if you or a member of your congregation would like to serve on the 2020 ELT. We have two remaining regular ELT meetings in 2020: Tuesday, May 12 and Tuesday, September 15.

Money & Mission in 3-D (part 2 of 3)

I can’t just pull up to the McDonald’s drive-thru window and expect to be handed a 10-piece McNugget meal with a Sprite because I’m handsome; I have to hand the cashier money before I get my value meal. But I’ll tell you this, once I’ve handed that money over, I’m not leaving the drive-thru without my food!

That may be an oversimplified illustration when talking about churches giving to their local Baptist network. The correlation between dollars given and deliverables received may not always be as clear or immediate as the exchange that takes place at a cash register. After all, when your church gives money to Cleveland Hope you’re not making a purchase, you’re maintaining a partnership. Every dollar given to Cleveland Hope is an expression of trust in our network’s leadership, purpose and vision. I do not take that trust lightly! Cleveland Hope’s dollars don’t come from nowhere; they come from your church! And your church dollars don’t come from nowhere either; they come from the allowances of kids whose parents are teaching them to tithe, from single moms working two and three part-time jobs to put food on the table, and they come from fixed-income senior adults, as well as other folks across the income spectrum.

Because every dollar is a precious expression of trust, it is entirely reasonable for churches and pastors to expect clarity about what Cleveland Hope is doing and plans to do with the support dollars received from them.

Deliverables

In Luke 5:4, Jesus says to a tired and frustrated Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter replies in v. 5, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” Jesus spoke directly to Simon Peter who replies saying: ‘I will let down the nets.” But in v. 6 the I becomes a they! “And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.” Jesus’ personal request got a partnering result.

“N.E.T.S.” stands for four key values and objectives for our network. Below are a few ways Cleveland Hope can deliver on its purpose to add value to our partner churches.

Networking Churches & Resources

• Strategic Planning - Got an idea for reaching or serving folks in your church’s neighborhood? Need some extra hands? Build community within your church and commraderie with a nearby church by either inviting them to serve with you or offering to serve with them. Reach out to Cleveland Hope, we can help you develop a neighborhood-reaching strategy and partnerships with other churches to help maximize results for the kingdom.

• Block Party Trailer - Want to host a community outreach event at your church or a local park complete with sno-cone & popcorn machines, sound-system, pop-up tents, coolers, and even an inflatable movie screen & digital projector? Visit www.bridgechurchperry.com to learn about this resource and reserve the trailer for your date.

• Resource Lending Library - Did you know Cleveland Hope maintains a library of books, Bible study materials in print, audio, and video formats for individual, small group, or church-wide use? Contact davery@clevelandhope.com for a current list of resources! Want a resource that’s not currently in our library? If you’re willing to return the leader kit to Cleveland Hope when you’re done so other churches can use it, we’ll buy it and have it shipped it to your church. (Note: requested resources are subject to review and approval by Cleveland Hope leadership.)

Encouraging Pastors

• Ministry Wives Network - Whether you are a pastor or church planter, if you’re married, there are ladies who want to engage and encourage your wife! Have her reach out to Jasmine Wilson (jasminestarwilson@gmail.com), Deborah Avery (deborahavery07@gmail.com), Kathy Loseto (kloseto@clevelandhope.com), or Beth Losteo (bloseto@clevelandhope.com). Don’t miss an opportunity for your closest ministry partner to find spiritual support from other ladies in ministry!

• Pastor Fellowships - Feelings of invisibility and isolation in ministry are real, but so is your opportunity to combat them with Cleveland Hope’s regular Pastor/Planter fellowships. Watch our Facebook group page and your email for details about our next morning and/or evening pastor/planter meet-up!

• Pastor Encourager Team - What a blessing it would be to have a team of pastor-leaders willing to make time in their schedules to reach out and encourage other pastors in their geographic zones of greater Cleveland. Good news: We have just such a team at Cleveland Hope! You can learn more about our zone encouragers by visiting the “N.E.T.S. Encourager Team” page on our website. Have an urgent prayer need? Need some counsel on a big decision? Get in touch with an Encourager today!

Training Leaders

• Theological Training - In our day and time a pastor’s need for in-depth biblical and theological training has never been greater. Cleveland Hope considers it a wise investment to assist our leaders when possible in obtaining rigorous and relevant ministry education from approved institutions. Our network provided nearly $3,000 in scholarships in 2019. (All scholarship requests are subject to approval by Cleveland Hope’s Executive Leadership Team.)

• State, Regional & National Training Events - Every ministry leader needs occasional re-tooling and sharpening. It’s an honor to help our leaders get the training they need for more effective ministry. Has it been a while since you attended a training conference? Based on available funds and need, Cleveland Hope can usually provide some type of assistance. Our State Convention of Baptists in Ohio provide a range of high-quality low-cost trainings for ministry leaders right here in the Buckeye state.

• VBS Training - Send your Vacation Bible School team members to a Cleveland Hope-hosted VBS training event. Get your volunteers ready for VBS together AND get a discount on VBS materials AND help Cleveland Hope get a cash incentive for hosting the event! Upcoming VBS Training event at Park Heights Baptist in Brook Park, Saturday morning, April 25. Mark your calendars and email Kathy Loseto with how many from your church are attending (klosteto@clevelandhope.com).

Sending Teams

• Teams of Churches - Few things build gospel synergy like two or more churches partnering for a specific mission endeavor. Whether it’s a new church plant in an under-reached part of Cleveland or a short-term trip to engage an unreached people group on another continent, Cleveland Hope wants to invest in joint gospel ventures between churches!

• Church Teams - Taking a group from your church to do gospel ministry in another part of greater Cleveland, Ohio, the U.S. or the world? Depending on the size of your team and estimated costs per-person, support funds may be available from Cleveland Hope to offset or supplement some of your team costs.

Again, these are just a few opportunities and ideas. You may have others; I’d like to hear them!

You’ll probably get tired of hearing me talk about NETS, but I really can’t think of a better image to capture the potential Cleveland Hope’s churches have for collaborative interdependence as we make Jesus known together. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Cleveland Hope. Visit our Contact page to set up a visit today! I’m here to serve you, to listen, and to dream together with you about partnering in the gospel!

~Darin Avery

Money & Mission in 3-D (part 1 of 3)

Jesus famously said in Matthew 6:24,

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Of course Jesus is right. But, assuming God is our Master, we can’t serve Him without money either. That’s true of individuals. It’s true of churches. And it’s certainly true of church networks like Cleveland Hope!

In this first of a 3-part series of posts called Money & Mission in 3-D, I want to begin looking at the dimensions of Cleveland Hope as-is, and as-it-could-be. Our first “D” is Dollars. Now that the 2019 budget year is complete, let’s start with a look at Cleveland Hope’s financial situation moving into 2020 and beyond.

Dollars

Cleveland Hope's capacity to help resource gospel endeavors locally and elsewhere depends on the regular financial contributions of our member churches. Last year’s budget called for $90,000 in church contributions. In 2019, with church gifts ranging from $40 to $14,000, we received a total of $77,079. Falling $13k short of our target was a bummer. Here’s the breakdown. Of the $77k received, over $39k (51.4%) was given by our top five (5) giving churches. The other churches (including Bridge Church, where I pastor) combined to make up the rest.

It’s a new year, and I’m trusting the Lord for more giving to Cleveland Hope! For one, last October messengers to our annual meeting passed a larger budget for 2020. How much larger? In terms of church contributions, $14,250 larger, taking our church revenue need from $90,000 to $104,250 (a 16% increase). The deeper why is that while the financial reality of a drop in giving is impossible to deny, the reasons for it are not always obvious at first, and in our case—as I explain below—I believe can be turned around. So, how will we get there? Here are some ideas:

1. Renewed Giving. Above, when I said “the ‘other churches’ combined to make up the rest…” there’s a catch: those ‘other churches’ aren’t ALL of the other churches! You see, the $77k that came in last year came from just 43 of the 61 local churches identified with Cleveland Hope. This means 18 (almost 1/3!) of the churches in our local network gave $0 in 2019. Surely at least one of them has a $100k annual budget; if that church gave just 3% to Cleveland Hope—that’s $3,000. Let’s say two of them gave $2,000, and another three gave $1,000; we’re already at $10,000. If the other twelve churches could together come up with $3,000 ($250 each), that would make up last year’s $13,000 church contribution shortfall.

   Bridge Church’s giving was down last year for a host of reasons. I know declined giving can make it tougher on churches to support local missions. Some churches can give but don’t if they or their pastors don’t see the value of local network giving. Once upon a time associations received trickle-down Cooperative Program (CP) dollars for admin costs, director salary, outreach, etc., but those days are over for Cleveland Hope. Yes, as a North American Mission Board-designated “SEND City” Cleveland does receive NAMB dollars for church planting, but not through Cleveland Hope’s budget. Except a rare request for supplemental or matching funds from our state convention for special needs, our association budget receives $0 from outside Southern Baptist agencies.

   Many of our non-giving churches gave to Southern Baptist efforts through the CP in 2019. That’s awesome! Did they join IMB missionaries on the foreign field or send team members to join a church planter in another part of Ohio or the U.S.? Perhaps not; yet they gave! So if CP-giving logic says “We may not be able to go but we can give to global gospel work through the CP,” wouldn’t the same logic apply here in our region? A church’s outreach in its own corner of Cleveland is local missions, but we’re talking about a metro area of nearly 2 million people! Your church and mine won’t be able to directly join or benefit from every event or endeavor our network supports but other churches will, and our network can’t support those things unless churches give! Every church can give something! So step 1 to strengthening our network’s financial future is closing the participation gap in giving. From $40 to $14,000 every partner plays a part. Our goal: 100% church participation!

2. New Affiliate Churches. You probably know a pastor or church nearby that’s baptistic in doctrine—perhaps non-denominational or independent Baptist. They love the Bible, believe the gospel, and want to make disciples. (I can think of three such churches in greater Cleveland right now whose pastors all attended Southern Baptist colleges or seminaries, but they aren’t partnered with us.) Why not have lunch with that pastor and share the networking vision and philosophy of Cleveland Hope? I’d be happy to join you—I’ll even buy lunch! Bring that pastor to one of our pastor breakfasts or another event to hear what’s going on across our network. The Lord might move them from independent to a new place of interdependent gospel labor. What if we on-boarded those three churches at $500, $1,000, and $2,000 respectively this year? There’s $3,500 towards our $14,250 mission budget increase.

3. Special Offering. If you’re thinking, But our church’s 2020 budget is already set; we can’t give more this year, think again! This August we’re going to promote and invite churches to take up a special-emphasis offering (think Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong) just for Cleveland Hope. This spring and summer I’ll be creating promotional materials, including special envelopes so your folks can continue to give through their local church as they support our broader family of churches. What if we raised a modest $10,000 in year 1? That almost puts us over the top!

4. Individual Giving. Do you suppose that across our 60 churches (made up of over 6,000 total members) there might be 20 kingdom-minded people willing to invest $20 a month in our church network on top of their church tithe? They might be pastors or laypersons, people who’ve benefited from or who just believe in N-E-T-S: Networked churches & resources, Encouraged pastors, Trained leaders, and Sent teams for the gospel’s sake in greater Cleveland. Let’s call it the “2020 Campaign” (okay, maybe not a great title!) Anyway, that’s $4,800, which would bring us to $18,300. Surplus baby!! February’s almost over, so we’re going to have to kick it into high-gear! To make it even easier, be looking for a “Donate” button to appear on our website soon!

A local Baptist association’s financial bread and butter will always be church contributions. However, we can explore additional and creative revenue streams to increase our network's capacity, and I certainly don’t have all the good ideas!

Do me a favor: take a few moments and complete the Cleveland Hope Support Questionnaire included in your weekly email. Thanks!

Dollars matter. Getting Cleveland Hope onto firm financial ground through the full participation of our member churches is important, but it’s not everything. Just because there’s an organization called Cleveland Hope doesn’t mean a church should automatically give to it. I want our network to be something that every pastor can unreservedly promote to his congregation as something of value to him and to the church. So, next week we’ll explore another “D” in our 3-part series “Money & Mission in 3-D”: Deliverables—how Cleveland Hope can add value to churches and pastors.

The LORD Accepts My Prayer

My 8 year-old daughter and some of her classmates were troubled by the recent wildfires in Australia and the threat those fires posed to wildlife (mainly koalas and kangaroos). I don’t think it ended up being sent (or even written), but part of their plan to bring about a resolution to this crisis was to write a letter to President Trump expressing their concerns in hopes that he might offer some help.

How instinctive children are to go to the highest known authority when disaster threatens. My daughter and her friends knew their parents couldn’t help, nor their teachers, not even their principal. They knew if anybody could help it was the President.

The human spirit made in the image of the divine Spirit knows intuitively that without God’s intervention, disaster is certain. That’s EVERYONE! The problem is that not everyone is as in-tune with God’s Spirit as David was. He prays in Psalm 6:8-9

“Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

for the LORD has heard the sound

of my weeping.

The LORD has heard my plea;

the LORD accepts my prayer.”

Even as born-again followers of Jesus, those devoted to the gospel and active in sharing it with others, the flesh can still lie to us, suggesting to us either that our crisis isn’t worthy of God’s intervention, or (even worse) that we don’t deserve God’s help, OR (worst of all) that God can’t be relied upon to come to our aid.

Paul reminds the Ephesians about the faulty logic of lostness when he says of the Gentiles:

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Eph. 4:18-19)

He’s talking about outward behavior that flows from inner blindness. And he warns the church:

“But that is not the way you learned Christ— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph. 4:20-24)

Paul and David knew that dependence upon God and the outer actions that reflect it begin in the mind—begin with a renewal of the spirit of the mind. It’s a renewal that reminds us that God is interested and invested in our every need. It’s a renewal that reassures us His intervention is not based on whether we deserve it or not. And it’s a renewal that anchors us in the absolute trustworthiness of God and His good heart towards us.

Are you tempted by the flesh to doubt that God will hear and accept your prayer?

Consider that God was preparing an answer to every man’s deepest, greatest need long before ever creating man. Consider that God, in love, chose to intervene in our problems and accept our prayers before ever a problem arose or a prayer was offered. His accepting of our prayers and His intervention in our looming disaster(s) is made visible and actual in the person of Jesus Christ—the Christ David foresaw and the Christ upon whom Paul sought to focus the early church.

I don’t know your crisis in detail nor do you know mine. But as I’ve been reminded this morning I want to remind you, partners in the gospel, that on the basis of our gospel Lord, our great God hears and accepts your prayer!

As the fires of personal or ministry crises rage and the workers of evil (both human and satanic) threaten, will you pause all outer activity for a few moments today in the middle of your week to deny the temptations of the flesh to doubt? Will you pause and voice a prayer in faith—a prayer for your own need, and a prayer for God’s intervention in the needs of your co-laborers in Christ?

Be assured, brothers and sisters: on the merits of Christ, the LORD accepts your prayer!

Responding to the Gift

It’s Christmas morning. You’ve invested time, thought, energy, and money into getting the perfect gift for someone you love. The moment you’ve awaited and anticipated has come. You’re far less excited about anything you may receive than you are about the joy you know your gift is going to bring that other person—it’s just perfect! Now, imagine your loved one’s response. What if it looked like one of these?

The ‘Layaway’ response. I don’t know if layaway is still a thing or not, but it was when I was a kid. I remember me and my sister trying on winter coats in August or September when they first hit the rack at Sears—not exactly my idea of a summer afternoon well-spent! Once we made our selection, we would then carry them to the service counter, mom would fill out some paperwork, and we’d leave our new coats with the clerk. We wouldn’t see our coats again until November or so. They could only be worn after they’d been paid off little by little over a few months.

Now imagine your loved one looking at the amazing gift you’ve given, looking back at you and saying, “I love it and want it, but why don’t you hang onto it for a while. I’ll pay you back little-by-little, and when this gift is fully paid off I’ll come and pick it up.” I’m guessing that’s not exactly a response you’d be okay with.

Some folks respond to the gospel—God’s gift of Jesus and salvation—this way. This is such a nice gift, and I’ll be excited to get it one day, but just not today; it’s too costly today; I need to pay it off before I can claim it. This is an “I’m not worthy of this gift yet, but I will be, you’ll see…” mentality. It wouldn’t bode well for a happy Christmas morning in your living room. Nor will it bode well for a happy meeting with God one day!

Credit. Okay, let’s restart Christmas morning. Same gift, same joy, same anticipation, same intended recipient. But what if your loved one says: “Oh wow! I’ve always wanted and needed this; thank you!” Now we’re talking, right? But then, you notice something strange. Your loved one pulls out a calculator, and after a few minutes of head scratching, a little chin stroking, and some vigorous tabulating looks at you and says, “You know what, I’d like to take this gift home and start using it today, but I also want to prove to you that I’m worthy of it. So here’s what I’ll do: I’m going to wash your car, mow your yard, rake your leaves and shovel your driveway. Basically I’ll be at your house taking care of things for a few hours at least one day per week from now on. You’re not going to regret giving this to me. I owe you and I’m gonna show you I’m good for it!

Sometimes people respond to the gospel this way. Instead of “I’m not worthy now but will be someday,” this response says, “I AM worthy of this gift now, and to prove it I’m going to pay it off with acts of service.”

Both of these responses to your perfect gift would be utterly heart-breaking to you. Motivated by love you had that person’s joy in mind, but instead of taking your kind gesture as a free gift it is seen as a debt to be paid off either in advance of receiving it or in increments after receiving it.

No Thanks. A third horrifying, Christmas-ruining response to your perfect gift is the “No thanks” response. We could also call this the “Not for me” response in which your loved one rejects the gift outright. Just imagine the confused and insulted look on your loved one’s face and the response, “Did you put the wrong person’s name on this present? This isn’t for me. I don’t need it or want it. Maybe another family member would like it.”

Can we just agree that if any of these three exchanges happens in your living room this Christmas morning, the thrill, the joys, the hopes of having given the perfect gift will vanish…and Christmas lunch is going to be really awkward.

As Christians, we will encounter versions of all three of these responses as we faithfully share God’s gospel gift with people in our lives. Many non believers either see the gospel of forgiveness through Christ as something to be earned or paid for (thus not a gift at all), or as a gift wrongly given—a gift they neither want nor feel they need.

HOWEVER, my main concern in writing this post is for us—Christians. The Advent/Christmas season gives us not just a chance to think about baby Jesus, but a needed opportunity to see ourselves yet again as recipients and to examine the response of our hearts to God’s gift based on another year of life as a Christian. Regardless of what we say to one another or even to ourselves about God’s gift of Jesus, we need to ponder what our actions, our motives, our anxieties, etc. are saying to God about His gift? Have we labored this year from a layaway standpoint: I really want eternal life, forgiveness, wholeness in Jesus, but I just don’t feel worthy of all of it…yet; God, please be patient with me as I labor to fully pay for Your gift which I hope to receive one day! OR a credit standpoint: Watch my good works and see how worthy I am of this gift, Lord…?

If not remedied by prayer, devotion to the Word, and humble, oft-renewed submission to the reality of biblical grace in the company of other grace recipients, both the layaway and credit responses will give way to a “No thanks/Not for me” response. Satan wants us to feel unworthy of God’s gift AND he also wants us to feel worthy of it. Either way, he distorts God’s gift into a non-gift, and if we labor uncorrected—even doing great things for the Lord—the “No thanks/Not for me” response will eventually emerge as having been our posture all along just hidden under a mask of false gratitude and pretentious gestures of repayment.

Alright, let’s try this one more time. It’s Christmas morning, the gift is prepared, you hand it to your loved one. Upon opening the gift, you see that person’s mouth open slightly and hear a gentle gasp. As the crinkle of wrapping paper fades, a pregnant silence fills the room. Still looking down at the gift and holding it in one hand, the other hand rises to the slightly opened mouth. A certain (good) kind of tightness rises from your chest to your own throat. You are as fixated on your loved one as he or she is on the gift in hand. Slowly the head rises and your loved one’s eyes meet yours. Sniffles. Hard swallows. Tears (good ones). And because vocal chords would be of no use, you watch as your beloved mouths an inaudible “Thank you!” Looking down at the gift and again back at you, another mouthed phrase comes, this time in a whisper: “I love it. It’s perfect! Thank you!”

You’re going to be buying, wrapping, and giving a lot of gifts this Christmas. As badly as you want your loved ones to receive them joyously, God likewise wants you to rejoice again in His matchless, undeserved, limitlessly valuable Gift of the person of His Son and the eternal and abundant life that can only be had through Him. Let’s take time to gasp and gaze at Jesus and the grace of God that He is to us. Let’s take every opportunity to be captivated in speechless wonder and gratitude and to mouth (and mean) the words “Thank you! It’s perfect” to our heavenly Father this Christmas!