Freedom in Worship

In this article, from May, 1974, Ken discusses freedom in Worship. He states that one of the things that draws people to the Charismatic Renewal is the free use of Spiritual Gifts in Worship. He goes on to exhort us to greater freedom. I think that the worship at First Baptist Church of Chula Vista in the mid '70s was marvelous. There was a freedom to share prophecies, a message in tongues, an insight or even to spontaneously start a song. If you haven't experienced such a time, it could sound like some form of chaos. This was not so. Everything was orderly; you just didn't know what to expect. We felt that this was the result of "not putting God in a box." We couldn't really order the service, this was the job of the Holy Spirit. Whatever one's feelings about this freedom of worship and the use of Spiritual Gifts in that worship, there was a sense of the presence of God in our worship.


First Baptist is a lot different now. Perhaps I shouldn't say "now", because I am not there now. I was essentially the pastor from 1980 until 2005. We moved away from that complete spontaneity. We became traditional in some ways, but we never completely lost our sense of worship. Part of this was that God had blessed us with wonderful musicians all through this period. When one "indispensable musician" left, another appeared. We always had good music. The style might change, but the worship was real. We also always had creative people in arts -- and later in Computer arts; we had dance (in the early days before the death of Becky Schoultz); and drama. I loved our worship right up until the day I left. I miss it still.


The picture is of Ken and Clay being prayed for before leaving on the missionary trip discussed in my last post. I can't identify all of the people, but the one on the left is Larry Clark, two unidentified, then Ken, Clay, Wallie Gray and Ed Dubois.

A World-Wide Ministry

As this issue of OLT was printed Ken Pagaard, Mona Pagaard and Clay Ford were preparing for a major trip. They were traveling to England, Zaire, Swaziland, and Columbia. Of course, this was not a journey for the sake of tourism. Ken had been invited to come and share about our life in community. Earlier, Ken had a major ministry in Zaire where a number of the missionaries had entered into the realm of the charismatic.


I think that the church was always somewhat uncomfortable with Ken's impact around the world. It wasn't that we weren't proud. We thought the world of Ken. We appreciated his ministry. We were glad that he was our pastor. But he was just, well Ken. He was our friend. We knew him. We took our life together as just the way it was. I think that it just kind of amazed us that others looked upon our life as something to be emulated.


The same thing was true with the way we looked at our newsletter, Our Life Together. I'm not really sure that we all read it. Most of us looked at various parts, but didn't necessarily really devour it. I remember attending one of our American Baptist Conventions and being approached by a Seminary President, holding his copy of OLT. He greeted me with, "I've just been reading this latest issue . . ." I was impressed and amazed. I don't think I had read it. As I look back I can see what an amazing thing that God was doing in our midst and I'm not sure that I really appreciated it. I was just more concerned with what was going on in my life and the lives of those around me.


Ken's article also pointed out the trust that he had for the Elders. Since I am a semi-retired pastor, I realize more than I did at the time how much it took to entrust his ministry to a group such as us. The eldership was an interesting group of men. Clay and Larry were theologically trained. The rest of us had strengths -- and weaknesses. Yet, God was able to use us in a way that emphasized our strengths and minimized our weaknesses. I was really privileged to belong to this group. Of course, at the time of this article, I was still in the Navy. My involvement in leading the congregation was pretty limited.

Jesus; Lord or Savior

This article from April, 1974 had wider implications than it seems on the surface. Ken's premise is that people need to take their conversion seriously. All too often conversion is the end result in Evangelicalism. Ken rightly states that we must take the Lordship of Jesus seriously. The end result is meant to be the creation of disciples, not merely converts. In 1971-1973, I was a member of a Bible Study that met on the Amphibious Base in Coronado. At one point a Commander joined the study. I asked him, "When did you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?" He said, "Oh, don't misunderstand. I have not accept Him as my Lord. I have just accepted Him as my Savior." My understanding is much like Ken's in the article, Lord and Savior are part of the same package. The article is a good discussion of this issue. It is also somewhat innocuous.


The problem lay in what disciplers would become. Most observers of the church -- and many ex members -- believe that we had a problem with some people having too much authority. The idea of some people being trained in discipleship is actually an accepted part of Evangelical practice. However, in our venue, discipleship could take on more than merely indoctrination into living the Christian Life. It was not just the Eldership that may have stepped over the line. It also happened sometimes in this area of discipleship. Of course, some may remember the "Shepherding" Movement under Bob Mumford. The idea was that everyone had someone over them to shepherd them. It was almost like a military movement. Some of our discipleship looked a lot like this.


Having pointed this out, I don't believe that this became an overwhelming issue. The Eldership and Ken were aware of the problems. We attempted to "self correct" the problem before it became endemic.

The Church and the World, Part 4

Ken ends this article by quoting parts of the Magnificat. The entire scripture follows:

And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers." (NIV)

The Magnificat is a beautiful song of praise to the Lord. Mary starts by praising the Lord for what He has done for her. She then goes on to praise him for his great mercy and for the great things he has done. The operative phrase is "the great things He has done." It is unfortunate that Ken used the words "personal revolution,"" political revolution,"" social revolution" and "economic revolution." The ideas expressed in the Magnificat are revolutionary, but they don't espouse starting revolution. God does things that are revolutionary when compared with the way human powers and authorities do things. Certainly God does these revolutionary things in the areas of our personal lives, politics, social structure and economics.


God does these things because these are God's values. He loves people. He is a just God. Christians should certainly have these same values. Therefore the Magnificat says something about how we attempt to live our lives. Jesus Christ came showing us how to live that kind of life. Jesus ministered by touching lives, mostly individually. He healed, he comforted, he taught. Yes, he also confronted when confrontation was needed. Should a Christian be involved in politics -- or even a revolution. Perhaps, but this is not the teaching of the Magnificat. Certainly it isn't a charter that we should have a certain kind of political/economic system. It is about God's action in the midst of human systems.

The Church and the World, Part 3

As we read these words, there is no doubt of Ken's understanding of the Sermon on The Mount as a call to a revolutionary way of living. But, as mentioned in previous posts, it is a revolution of the heart; a revolutionary way of thinking about our values that he is talking about. I have heard Ken teach on the Sermon on the Mount many times. He never (as far as I remember) advocated a position of rebellion against the government, or trying to force our will through political process; he did advocate a radical new way of thinking as we took seriously the teachings of Jesus.

I first became acquainted with the academic study of the Sermon on the Mount from my New Testament professor at Bethel Seminary, Bob Guelich. He wrote a great book, "The Sermon on the Mount," which is a study using the tools of Biblical and Literary criticism. It isn't a book of devotionals, but a study. I found myself becoming more interested. Then I discovered "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is more in line with what Ken seemed to believe. The teachings were to be followed by disciples of Jesus. Yet, Bonhoeffer wasn't advocating political revolution -- he was writing in Nazi Germany. He was advocating a radical discipleship of Christians. Finally, I read Dallas Willard's, "The Divine Conspiracy." Without going into a real review of the book, the basic principles echo Bonhoeffer and Ken Pagaard.

The Sermon in some ways is a reaction to the Jewish Law. It doesn't negate the law, it goes to the heart of the law. It can only be practiced if there is a change of heart. The problem with the law was that it didn't go far enough. Law can regulate behavior. Law can't regulate the human heart. Jesus came to give us new life and transform our hearts. The Sermon on the Mount expands the Law into the realm of a transformed heart. This is an area of life that can never be regulated by political means.

The Church and the World, Part 2

Ken and most of us in leadership at FBCCV looked to the early church as our model. This also seemed to be true for most of the Charismatic Renewal. Since Baptists weren't hooked into any specific liturgy, the spontaneity and liberty of the expressions of the Gifts of the Spirit were seen as signs of authentic worship, in the tradition of the early church. Of course, the liturgical church saw things a little differently, signs of life did not destroy the liturgy. But regardless of our view of liturgical or free, we all looked to the early church, before Constantine.


In this article, Ken discusses the "fall of the church" after Constantine. While the fortunes of the church seemed to improve under Imperial favor, the fervor of the church actually declined. Ken even looked at the creeds, such as the Nicene, with a little jaundice. It isn't necessarily the creed that was bad. It was the fact that the church was beginning to ossify rather than remain malleable under the move of the Spirit. He ends this paragraph with the statement, "It is significant that none of the creeds say anything like 'I believe in living by the Sermon on the Mount.'"


Here again, Ken emphasizes the fact that the church is not to be something used by the government. Whatever your understanding of Constantine and his conversion, Constantine did use the church to forward his political aims. Ken thought that it is important to keep the church free of such use. Separation of Church and State was extremely important. Of course, how this seems now to be interpreted by those in power is another issue. The church is to stand alone. The church is composed of a people committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They are good citizens. They may be involved even in the governing, but the church stands apart. Therefore the church can speak as a moral source into the life of the government. As we will discuss in the next post, the constitution of the church is the Sermon on the Mount.

The Church and the World, Part 1

This article by Ken Pagaard created quite a stir when uploaded to facebook. The issue was this, was Ken advocating political change or was he advocating personal, heart change. I will be discussing this for this and, at least, one other posting.

The problem was caused by the way Ken wrote the article. It was a good article, but he discussed the fallacy of Political change on page one, then on page two, while discussing the Magnificat, he mentions political revolution. This posting, and the one(s) to follow will be a commentary on this article. Since I was a part of the eldership at this time, I will also try to present some of the ideas on this issue that Ken discussed with us.

The article starts with a prophetic utterance presented by Tom McCulloch which called on the church to be different than the surrounding society. We should live by a different set of standards. This was the basis for Ken stating, "The quality of life in the Kingdom is clearly defined in the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord seems to be directing our attention to this."
The Sermon on the Mount is seen as the key to Christian living by many down through the years. My favorite theologian is Dietrich Bonhoeffer who in "The Cost of Discipleship" sets out these basic principles. A more modern author is Dallas Willard who wrote a similar work "The Divine Conspiracy."

A key to understand where Ken was coming from in this article is given in paragraph two. "Liberals have tried to legislate the Kingdom into existence, imposing its standards upon unregenerate hearts and social structures." He also discusses those who follow other theological constructs. Ken was not a dispensationalist. He believed that scripture was normative. Of course this included the Sermon on the Mount. It was not for a future period. But, even though it was for today, it was not something that could be legislated. It could only come to those who had regenerated hearts. Ken was primarily looking toward a heart change. Therefore his words were primarily for the church -- not just First Baptist of Chula Vista -- the Church -- worldwide.

Ken believed that what we were learning at FBCCV was normative for Christianity. This included the Charismatic and Community. But this was not enough. Even though we had come a long way, we had to grow into a deeper life ourselves. This would lead to more submission -- which is another point of contention. For Ken, submission always started with submission to the Lord. Submission to one another or to the eldership was always based upon submission to the Lord first of all.