Response to a Cultural Missionary

Hi Ben, I wanted to respond a bit more formally to your brief remarks on Facebook RE: Cultural Missionary. I've taken a look at your ministry, which is the only picture I have of what you're doing. From that glimpse comes a few questions that I'd like to know more about.

(Starting from the beginning of the main video)

1. Why do you mention that you're 501c3? Granted, this has nothing to do with the "Cultural Missionary" question at all, but it did strike me that you felt the need to mention your tax status to lead off. That also made me wonder how the IRS liked your affiliation with Dr. Ben Carson. As I understand it, open support is not allowed for 501c3 organizations, but as with the law, semantics I'm sure allows you a loophole. Again, beside the point, yet I do want to know what you have to say in response to this article about 501c3 ministries.

2. Though I understand that you're after "seeing and doing" the big things that God could have for someone's life, saying that you're ministry is not about asking or thinking seems to open yourself up for caricature attacks. Especially since culture portrays Christians as non-intellectual.

Aside from that concern, I have to know, what are you doing any different than any other mainstream, world mimicking, rock-concert-at-church type of modern ministry? You say that you're doing things differently, maybe even dynamically, but what does that mean? Are you so different that you're with one bold sweep clearing the table of all New Testament examples in which people were reached one by one through one to one encounters? Essentially, are you saying something like, "That is the old method, we're doing the new method that everyone else is doing, we've got a band, we've got media, we've got this and that conference."

3. You mention that we have to meet ever changing culture with the never changing gospel. What has changed about culture? Ever? It seems to me that ministries such as Ask or Think, and others like it, have constantly tried to change the gospel to make it more palatable to a sin-loving public. What do you think you're doing better with your travelling 150,00 plus miles to reach more than 26,000 people than a group of 10 who reach more than 80,000/year while travelling the distance from Rockford to Chicago, Illinois once a week for 50 weeks?

I'm not against using modern tools, I use them. But those tools can never replace actively seeking out one to one witnessing encounters. That is and will always be the Bible's example for reaching the lost. That being the case, all one needs to know in order to reach a culture is the language. You might say I'm simplistic. Sure, that's the point, it's simple. Everyone can do it.

4. This brings me to this next point. The only way to know a culture is to talk with individuals one to one. I don't subscribe to the collectivist notion that treats people groups as a whole. Every person comprising culture is an individual, and God treats them as such when calling men to repentance. He will also judge each person for his own sin, individually. Culture doesn't concern Him. What the person does in response to the repent from sin/turn to Christ message concerns Him.

On that final note about sin. Why don't you mention sin in any of your videos? Are you afraid of something there? If I were happily walking off of a cliff, you'd warn me, wouldn't you? That'd be true love. Warning one about sin is exponentially more important, wouldn't you agree?

5. I believe you have great intentions for all of your programs. But everyone has great intentions (ultimately) for what they do/believe in. For instance, all world leaders, if pressed, would certainly tell you that what they're doing will be for the good of everyone. Good intentions, however, are not synonymous with good practice, and those leaders have more often than not created disasters through their short-sighted good intentions.

Perhaps you don't realize it, but your entire ministry model exists, because the Modern American Church is a broken model. Churches were ordained by God to handle all of the issues (and more) that you're currently addressing. So, instead of fixing the problems at the God ordained institution level, para-church ministries, with good intentions, begin popping up. They can't focus on the individual, and for that the cultural war is lost one individual at a time, because true, deep, Bible-style fellowship and discipleship can never be accomplished, thus the far-sighted issues become increasingly serious over time.

If elder men trained younger men, and elder women trained younger women like they're commanded to do in Titus 2, then you'd see no need whatsoever for your para-church organization. But the pulpit centered model that hinges upon, "show up, shut up, pay up" leaves the culture desperate for substantive questions and meaningful answers. Bottom line, the harder these modern organizations try, the worse the culture becomes. But that's not quite true is it?Culture/mankind has always been against God. Nothing has changed there. What has changed is that the church and organizations such as yours keep trying to skirt the real issue, namely, dealing with sin up front, while and focusing instead on sin's symptoms. For that alone, you're wrong. No matter how good your intentions are.

Finally, I see that you're diligently networking with a number of people, such as Pensacola's Mayor, Ashton Hayward, and Presidential hopeful, Ben Carson. I don't know anything about Ashton Hayward. I hope he is repentant from sin to trusting in Christ Christian. Ben Carson on the other hand is assuredly not, as his Seventh Day Adventism (a doctrine of devils) bears record. Granted, you don't have Dr. Carson on your website, but I felt the need to address this as it is part of our discussion.

Professing Christians in today's America are all too ready to support this or that candidate, while claiming their choice as a wonderful Christian. This was often done concerning Dr. Carson, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. I see this as a woefully horrific illustration concerning the state of the culture. Gone are the days that pastors can comprehend doctrinal error, or are willing to point it out (might have something to do with that 501c3 issue above). Gone are the days in which people understood that the current prince of this world is Satan, that Christians fight against principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places. Today these same Christians are wanting to, "Take back America for Christ." Let's be clear here, if a nation was founded upon rebellion, Christ was not for it, or those people. God didn't look sideways and say it's OK, it's America, they can be rebellious, it's for a good cause. I'm all for liberty, don't misunderstand, but free or not, I will still serve Christ the way He commanded. The way described in the New Testament regardless of the type of government.

The fact that you became "Spiritual Adviser" to Seventh Day Adventisst Ben Carson fits with this narrative. You are not different. You are part of the cultural stream. If you truly want to be different then forsake the organizations. Save yourself some time. Reach more by focusing on your neighbors who are right next door, needing to be compelled to repent and believe in Christ. Quit focusing on the forest, and see the trees. Then you will have been counter-cultural like Christ and His followers were.

Robert's Introduction

This will be an exciting first time collaboration for me. In my other work, I have done all of the writing, research, and proofing/editing (or lack thereof), but this page will be a joint effort between my brother and I. We hope to cause the reader to think differently about a number of Bible, Religious, and Church topics. Both Tim and myself were raised in a staunchly Christian home by Bible following God-fearing parents, who worked in the ministry themselves. My father read the Bible to us almost nightly, when he was not deployed by the US Navy, if he were out working, my mother picked up the slack. Therefore, one could surmise that we have heard the Bible almost non-stop since our early childhood. As we grew, our parents both became increasingly involved in each church that we attended. At one point or another, Tim or I were students in either my mother's or father's formal schooling as my mother was a Christian School Teacher, and my father was a Christian School Principal. By the time we entered high school, Tim and I had moved around quite a lot, as a result of my father's Naval career, and seen how the majority of churches work in the United States both from being involved in church functions, as well as being the children of church workers. The next peak at the ministry we received was when my father was offered a position as the Director of the Christian Servicemen's Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Now, we became missionary kids, and experienced even more! But the time soon came to step out of our parent's shadow, so to speak, and we entered Pensacola Christian College for formal Christian ministry training. I finished a degree in History, and then earned a Master's degree in Bible. Tim, for his part earned a Ministerial degree, and by 2004 we both began our "Full-time" Christian Ministry. 

We had learned that the ministry is a tough path to enter, one that would require long hours, angry people, and little pay, but that never bothered us, as it seldom bothers any who are involved in ministry. Yet, we could only experience the harsh ministry reality through other's eyes until we entered it ourselves. Tim was hired as an Assistant Pastor in Orlando, and I became a History Teacher in Rockford, Illinois. Both positions held much promise and excitement for us young 20-somethings. But within that first year, as could be expected troubles began to show. Those troubles mounted with each passing week to month to year and so on, until a series of "crises" occurred. As most Christians know, those "crisis" times reveal much, and they do not allow for error to continue. It's God's refining process, as He so often illustrates throughout the Old and New Testaments. But for Tim and I, something was different. Our upbringing taught us to test everything against the Bible, let me clarify once again - EVERYTHING! 

We had seen so many styles and types of churches the world over, which offered us discerning viewpoints when the crises started arriving in our own respective ministries. Soon, to make a long story short, those exciting ministries turned into depressing traps, and we left. Tim left Orlando in 2007, and I left Rockford in 2008. It was during each instance that God began to teach us, as we begged Him for wisdom, while we attempted to "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." as I Thessalonians. 5:21 states. We do not claim to know all things, nor do we claim to be able to know all things, if that were possible, then we would be God. What we do claim, is that the Bible will be our sole authority as we walk through many of the constant church-plaguing issues of our day and the past. I trust that as we build our blog library that you, reader, will see our sincere spirit and wholehearted attempt to rightly divide the Word of Truth, and goad you into the proper Biblical response, not because we or anyone else said so, but because the Bible is clear on each matter. May God Bless.

Maranatha!

Robert Van Ness.