Covenant News
Pastor Sees Spiritual Growth as Most Important
by Craig PinleySANTA ROSA, CA (September 27, 2003) - Editor's note: This is the third in a six-part series exploring Redwood Covenant's experience in spiritual transformation. To read the first two parts in the series, visit the links displayed at the end of this story.
John Strong had been the senior pastor at Redwood Covenant Church for 14 years and had seen more than 400 people came to Christ during a three-year span. Strong believed his church was fighting the good fight in Sonoma County and hoped a new building would aid the growth process. However, God told Strong, as he did Peterson, that the spiritual health of the church was a more critical concern.
"The charismatic movement is not part of Scott's (Peterson) makeup, so I was expecting Scott to come back and say, 'Yes, God was speaking to me, or No, He was not," said Strong in recalling a staff leadership retreat where Peterson delivered his first word from the Lord. "Instead, I get what amounts to a much more generalized critique of our spiritual condition at the church - references using typically similar phrases as you'd see in the Old Testament, and words that were not as straightforward as one might wish."
Associate pastor Peterson wasn't the first person advising Strong to look closely at the spiritual condition of the church. On September 9, Strong had received a strongly worded letter from a parishioner encouraging Strong to take a three-day prayer and fasting retreat. Strong didn't follow that advice until after reading the letter a second time a few days later. Strong said God spoke to him in a restaurant near the hotel he was staying at during day three of his prayer and fasting period. "I don't normally fast to hear from God," said Strong. "I normally fast as a spiritual discipline, not looking for some spiritual revelation. There are a lot of scattered thoughts, a lot of physical weakness . . . I was thinking that this was a bad time, I had a sermon to do, and I was kind of grinding my teeth about this. But I felt like I needed to eat something and all of sudden God started talking to me, and very bluntly, actually."
Using a food analogy, God told Strong that His word was the spiritual lifeblood of Strong's ministry. He admonished Strong to read the Bible three times a day just as he would eat three meals a day to care for his physical well being. "There will be no fasting from my Word," Strong recalls God telling him. "And basically, He linked my physical experience with my spiritual one." God wanted Strong to feed his congregation balanced preaching, adding the vegetables of personal testimony and praise for God's goodness along with the meat and potatoes doled out from Strong's teaching style. God added that Strong needed to eat better and take care of his own body.
God told Strong that Redwood Covenant Church needed him, outlining for him six primary congregational needs:
- Time and energy are much more important than money
- People must learn to sacrifice comfort, recreation and personal choices for the greater good of the church
- People need to spend more time searching for God, not for signs that God is present
- Strong must get out among the sheep and call them up from their beds
- The congregation needs a spiritual cleansing and scrubbing of the church before it changes locations
- The people need to know that a wonderful future is in store for the church if it follows God's plan
Strong says he left the restaurant and was headed to a doctor's appointment when he heard God telling him to go to a nearby town to bless the house of a parishioner who had recently moved. Strong was worried about being late for his appointment, but went to the parishioner's home and blessed it room by room. After leaving the house, Strong drove toward the freeway, but says God told him to take a new route to the doctor's office, a route that included a large number of stoplights in the middle of town.
Although Strong feared he would be late by taking such a seemingly indirect route, he obeyed and all of the lights were green as he arrived on time to his appointment. Strong believes the incident served as an analogy for ministry at Redwood. He's hopeful that taking what seems like an indirect route to the building project will ultimately be blessed with green lights once the building is completed. "We're still figuring out what He's asking us and I'm not certain of the full measure of that," Strong says. "But God has said that if we're willing to go there, he will bless it."
Tomorrow: Elders Stunned by the Message. To read the first two parts of this series, visit the following links:
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