By DR. JACK
TRIEBER
Pastor, North Valley Baptist Church, Santa Clara, California (Preached in 2001 at Mountain Empire Sword Conference, Bristol, Tennessee)
I wish you could
come to Santa Clara and visit us. At North Valley Baptist Church we are right
in the middle of a residential area. The houses in our church neighborhood are
not fancy and are about forty years old. I live just three blocks from the
church. There are only five feet between property lines. The houses are pretty
small—1,180 to 1,200 square feet. And they sell for $550,000! When we took over
the church, it was just six months old. We had our twenty-sixth anniversary on
July 15, 2001.
To begin with, we
had two-thirds of an acre and a tiny church building, which has since been torn
down. We bought two houses next door, fifty feet by one hundred feet, just to
tear them down. We have thirty-eight parking stalls, the most we’ve ever had.
We shuttle people. We have beautiful airport shuttle buses with power doors and
air conditioning. But our people have to park at a computer company, Sun
Microsystems. Then they are bused to church.
I feel sorry for you guys who have fifty acres or forty acres. That must be depressing! It must be like bees in a boxcar. But at our place, it’s activity.
I live three blocks
from the church. Three blocks in another direction is the college. It has six
and a quarter acres. We bought a 40,000-square-foot computer company and
remodeled it.
Now to the message.
My subject is “The Ingredients of a Great Church.” I thank God for the church.
As a five-year-old, forty-five years ago in a tiny building with lanterns
glowing, I walked forward. Christ reached down His hand and saved me.
Walking out into the
back, the first person I saw was my dad. I said, “Dad, I got saved tonight.” He
was so happy for me. For some time now I’ve been my dad and mother’s pastor.
I’m glad I’m saved.
Then I’m thankful
that God put us in a good, sound Baptist church. Sweeter gets the journey every
day. I’m not planning on getting out. It’s wonderful to be the pastor of a New
Testament Baptist church.
I was sitting on the
plane next to a fellow from Scotland. He said, “I think I’m going to retire at
age fifty-six. When do you plan to retire?”
I said, “Never.” I
want to be pastor of my church as long as those people will let me and as long
as I have the physical health to do it.
Some necessary
ingredients need to be given priority in a church for it to be a great church.
I know the word “church” is a New Testament term, a called-out assembly, yet
that church in the wilderness was called out of Egypt. I want to look at this
church in the wilderness and see if the ingredients of a great church can be
found therein.
Turn to Joshua,
chapter 1.
“Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto
Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,
“Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan,
thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the
children of Israel.”—Vss. 1,
2.
Then He describes
the land:
“Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I
given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
“From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the
river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward
the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.”—Vss. 3, 4.
God is saying that
one ingredient of a great church is land, not acreage, but area. To have a
great church, pastor, you need to claim your area “from the wilderness… unto
the great sea toward the going down of the sun.”
People say, “Well,
bless God, there are 343 Baptist churches in our area.” (I counted them last
night in the Yellow Pages.) Thank God for every pastor who is doing something.
Don’t preach against them nor be mean to them. But don’t think, Well, bless
God, we’ll work together to get it done. It’s my job and my church’s job to
claim my area for Christ. You won’t make everybody happy, but claim your area.
We started our bus
routes twenty-six years ago in about a twenty-five-block area. We said, “This
is your area. Route one, capture that area for Christ. Route two, this is your
area. Capture that area for Christ. Route Ten … Twelve … Fourteen … Eighteen — ca p t u re your area for Christ.”
When I see someone
in my area who doesn’t belong there, it bothers me. When I see these Jehovah’s
Witnesses in my area, it bothers me.
Right next door to
our church is a rest home. Earl and his wife wheel over to church. They are members.
On a Saturday I was
out soul winning. All of a sudden I saw Jehovah’s Witnesses talking to Earl in
his wheelchair.
Friend, when someone
with poison is speaking to one of my members, it bothers me. I pulled
alongside, rolled down the window and asked, “Earl, what are you doing?”
He said, “Preacher,
it’s okay. They’re trying to peddle their garbage, and I’m not going to take
it.” I like that spirit!
Santa Clara, San
José, Silicon Valley—that area is mine. You say, “Well, what about another
brother who’s going to preach the Gospel?” I’d never work against him. But I’m
not going to give my responsibility over to the next guy and say, “ Well, bless
God, go ahead and work that area.” That is my area to reach for Christ.
Until you get the
conviction, “That area is my area,” you will never build a great church.
I took a young boy
home from church on Sunday night—a high school boy; big, tall basketball
player; a junior in our high school, about six-foot-four. As we turned the
corner, I said, “Jake, in that house right there [and I pointed] was the very
first family I led to Christ twenty-five-plus years ago when I came here. I was
out knocking on doors during an afternoon, and I won James and Diana to Christ
that day. They came and were baptized.
“They moved away. Another
fellow moved in that house.”
I told Jake the
story about the next guy, who worked at the rest home right next door to our
church. One day that fellow didn’t go to work. He listened to acid rock music
all day long. That night a little voice kept saying to him, “Go get a knife and
kill somebody.”
After listening to
that music, he got up and slaughtered with a knife his mother, his dad, his
aunt, his uncle and his sister. I said to Jake, “Do you know why my heart is
aching? I reached the first family, but I missed the second family.”
That area is my
area. I’m responsible for it.
There is little
crime in our area. But a place about twenty-five minutes away where we have the
bus route was crime-ridden: number one murder capital in America. T h e re we
re a lot of little storefront Baptist churches in that area at that time;
different ethnic groups—but the number one murder area. We went in there with
our buses some fifteen years ago. Every Sunday we brought over a hundred people
from that area to church. Murder has stopped in that area.
Those preachers from
those other churches say, “The reason the murders stopped is North Valley
Baptist Church.” We’ve been bringing boys and girls, men and women, moms and
dads to church. It’s amazing. Since the area has been changing, they have come
in with redevelopment funds and are redeveloping that area.
That area is our area!
Go home and claim
your area for Christ. Go home and say, “That street belongs to us.” You may not
be able to start a bus route there yet, but call that area your area. By God’s
grace put a bus here and one in there and another here. I know the bus ministry
is a thing of the past, but it still works.
On Sunday there are
seven services on our property. Then we have a service in the afternoon over at
the other property. I preached on Sunday morning and gave the invitation, and
the first primary church came down the aisle. All the different services come
in, and we explain, “Here’s a person who got saved in this ministry and in that
ministry.” The primary kids came walking down the aisle and lined up—fifteen or
sixteen of them. I thought, Thank God, we sent the bus!
We have men and
women in the ministry from the bus ministry. A pastor in Virginia is married to
a lady who rode the buses twenty-some years ago. There’s a lady on the mission
field today who rode the bus to our church. Scores are pastors and missionaries
and evangelists who we re-reached through the bus ministry. Men on this
platform were reached through the buses years ago. It works! It’s hard work,
but claim that area and take in a bus.
It’s hard to get
buses in California now, so we buy them in Kansas. Last year they brought ten
to us. The year before, another ten. It’s a big headache trying to keep those
things going, keeping them insured, keeping them running and filling the gas
tanks, but it’s worth it!
Claim that area.
Say, “It’s my area. It belongs to my church. I’m going to reach this area for Christ.” Not only
does a great church need land, but we absolutely need
Too much is being
done in the flesh.
“There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of
thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee.”—Vs. 5.
I remind you of John
15:5: “For without me ye can do nothing.”
“Well, I’m not very
smart,” you say. But with God’s help, He can use you to build a church.
I was in Bible
college in the late sixties. I went to college. I wanted to go to Viet Nam, but
my dad said, “Son, you owe me one year. All you kids should go to school
thirteen years. Go at least one year to Bible college.” I went to Bible
college.
I didn’t try to
break the rules, but I just didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be in the
military with my buddies in Viet Nam. In that freshman year I wanted to get
out, but I knew I’d be running from God.
I went back that
sophomore year. God started working on my heart. I knew He was calling me to
preach. I wasn’t trying to be rebellious; I just knew I couldn’t preach. I told
the Lord, “You have the wrong man. I’ll do anything else. I’ll be a bus
director, a youth director, but I can’t be pastor of a church. I could never
stand in front of people and speak.”
My junior year I
said, “It’s too late now, Lord.” Then came my senior year. Then I graduated and
went into the ministry as an assistant pastor. All that time I knew God was
working on my heart.
Finally I said,
“Lord, I’ll go wherever You want me to go.”
My wife and I felt
as if God were taking us to India as missionaries. He opened a door in a school
in India that William Carey had established. In 1975 we had made provision. I
told my parents on a Wednesday night after church, “Now, I’m going to resign
and go to India as a missionary.”
I did resign. Then
when the war with Pakistan broke out, doors were closed, and I was told I
couldn’t go.
I was twenty-four
years old. A church in northern
California with thirteen members said, “We want you to candidate for us, in
view of becoming our pastor. You and your wife will live in one of the
nurseries at the church, also cook here.”
The week before I
was to candidate, I got a call. The man said, “We heard you’re twenty-four.”
“That’s right.” They
said,
“We heard you’ve
never preached before.”
“I’ve preached three
times: once on the radio and twice in public.”
The caller said, “We
need someone with more experience.”
I thought to myself,
You only have thirteen people. Whom can you get?
A church in Colorado
called. It had nine members. “We want you to come, but we can’t pay you. You
need to live here and get a job.”
I was all lined up
to go there to candidate, when they called back and said, “Hey, Brother Jack,
we found out that you’re twenty-four.”
“Yes.”
“ We found that
you’ve not preached before.”
“Right.”
The caller said, “We
need a more experienced man.”
Two down; three
strikes and you’re out!
North Valley Baptist
Church in Santa Clara, where I am now pastor, was six months old. It was a
brand-new little church with twenty members. The one man who called said,” We
want you to come and candidate.”
I told him, “Number
one, I’m twenty-four. Number two, I’ve preached only three times before.”
I’ll never forget
what that wonderful, godly man, Brother Brownley, who’s with the Lord now, said
to me: “Brother Jack, if you’re God’s man, we want you.”
That day in February
of 1976 I taught Sunday school from Acts 12. In the early morning service I
thought, I don’t know many texts. How about preaching on John 3:16?
I preached that
morning, and two people walked forward and got saved. That was the first time
someone had gotten saved under my preaching.
Sunday night I
preached from Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. I went home that night so excited! I said to my wife, “Honey, I could
do this the rest of my life! I don’t know if I was any good, but I sure felt
right at home preaching!”
The church called me
to come as pastor.
I’ll never get over
it—that God would take a man with no ability nor experience, who did not learn
hermeneutics, homiletics and apologetics, and say, “I want to use you in the
Silicon Valley.”
Someone asked me,
“How in the world can you preach to that crowd, the brainpower capital of the
world?”
It’s hard to get a
hotel in this area. They fly in every single day from around the world to learn
the computers. The Silicon Valley chip was created there. I don’t understand
all that brainpower. They ask me, “How do you preach with all that great
intelligence around you?”
You know, I don’t
even know how to turn on a computer! I have one on my desk. All my staff have
them. All the computers are networked to all the ministries. Everybody has
e-mail. All our college boys have to work the computer. With a computer, you
can get by without a secretary.
I don’t know about
any of that stuff. Someone says, “I sent you an e-mail, and you never
answered.”
I’ll say to the secretary,
“Pull up all the e-mails.” I find some months old.
It’s not my
responsibility to know how to be proficient in the computer. It’s my
responsibility to know this Book.
It’s an amazing
thing. Try to walk with God in the light of His Word and fellowship with Him
and pray on a daily basis, then stand up in the pulpit and look at people who
are so very smart, so intelligent!
This bunch will say,
“Look what’s happening in the stock market.” What’s happening? I don’t even
know how to read the thing. I don’t know what all those little numbers are.
You ask, “How much
money do you have in stocks?”
Zero. I have my
stock at North Valley Baptist Church, 941 Clyde Avenue, Santa Clara,
California.
We have depended
upon earthly wisdom too long. We need the Lord. D. L. Moody said, “Put a fire
in the pulpit, and people will come watch it burn.”
To see a great
church established in our area, we need land, and we need the Lord. Depend upon
God! Depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ! Depend upon the Holy Spirit! Depend on
Him! Let your faith in Him be the foundation of your ministry!
Certainly we need
the Law, the Word of God.
“Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to
do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee….
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt
meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all
that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then
thou shalt have good success.”—Vss.
7, 8.
One of the great
ingredients missing in the churches is the Word of God. Sunday School teachers
stand before their classes with quarterlies. Get rid of those quarterlies and open the Bible. Sow from the
Word of God. Tell the people what it says.
“It’s a different era,” you say. Yes, a different era, but the same heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). A little fifth-grade boy today has a wicked heart just like a little fifth-grade boy two thousand years ago had a wicked heart. Give him the Word of God.
I see so many of
these youth groups, young and fresh, kids with orange hair and earrings. That’s
not so with the youth group in our church. We have standards and convictions!
We are separated. Ours don’t wear little necklaces, have punk hairdos nor
earrings. Preach the Word of God. It will do its work in them.
We had our youth
conference last week. Young people came from around the nation. They packed
that auditorium and sat up on the stairs and down the sides, with chairs
everywhere. They packed all three balconies and the lower
floor.
We had activities in
the afternoons, but we had a lot of preaching —hard preaching. I told all four
preachers, “Go for the jugular vein every time. We’re looking to see young
people get saved, for young people to get separated, for young people to say
they will serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t namby-pamby. The harder you
preach, the more they will like it.”
I watched these
kids. They get into it. The preacher will be preaching. They’ll raise their
Bibles and say, “Amen!”
You say, “It’s just
a bunch of emotionalism.” Go ahead and say that while your youth group is dying
and while we’re trying to figure out how to build more buildings to house these
young people.
I’m not being proud
and arrogant, but I’m telling you that God’s Word still does the work today.
What do we need? We
need land, the Lord, the Law, and
“Have not I
commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou
dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou
goest.
“Then Joshua
commanded the officers of the people.”—Vss. 9, 10.
If we had a leader
in every pulpit in America, a man of God who loves God, we could see great
things happen—such a man who gets up Monday morning and says, “Lord, my people
need something from the Word of God on Wednesday night, Sunday morning and
Sunday night. They need a man of God who walks with God.”
Read the Bible,
study the Bible, get ready to preach the Bible. The man of God says, “Bless
God! come what may, here is where we stand.”
You say, “That’s
easy to say.” Yes, but harder to do. When you say, “Rise up and build,” the
Devil says, “Rise up and oppress.” There is always some woman or some man or
some couple who are against you. It’s been that way my whole ministry. You
preach hard. You love people. Most of them love you and care for you and
respect you and pray for you and are kind to you. But, oh, when you cross
somebody through preaching, through standing for what’s right, through not
allowing a kid who’s done wrong to stay in the school, you have to pay the
consequence. Trouble breaks loose!
What are you going
to do? Are you going to cower down? God knows I’m not mean to my people. But I
preach with love in my heart and say, “Here’s where we are going. This is the
way. Walk ye in it.”
Can you imagine
Moses’ saying, “Well, let’s just get everybody together, and then we’ll figure
out what direction we’re going”? Can you imagine Elijah’s saying, “Let’s
convene on Mount Carmel, and then we’ll see if we can figure out what we’re
doing”?
We’re trying to
build a 2,750- seat auditorium. We’re raising money. We want to pay cash for
that building. At the same time, we’re trying to raise money to build a men’s
dorm. With all these and other
projects upon us, I said, “Folks, we needed the auditorium five years ago. The
early morning service is now filled. The lower floor is packed. The second
service is jam-packed. The balcony is full. We’ve taken the kids out. We’re
having youth services elsewhere. We have all these things going.
“But, folks, I’m not
going to hurt the church over this. If it means preaching twice on Sunday
morning and twice on Sunday night, I’ll do it. I just believe, though, that we
need that auditorium.”
A leader has to be
sensitive. A dad can’t just say, “Hey, I’m the boss! Sit down, shut up and
listen to me, kids!” A man can’t look at his wife and say, “Hey, the Bible says
submit!” Don’t use the Bible to attack your wife in submission.
But we also need leadership. Leadership charts a course and says, “Here is where we’re going.”
“And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou commandest us we will
do, and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go.
“According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hear -
ken unto thee: only the Lord thy God be with thee.”—Vss. 16, 17.
We need the land,
the Lord, the Law, the leader; and we need loyalty.
Church member, don’t
fight a man of God. Don’t fight the preacher’s wife. If you ladies keep the
pastor’s wife encouraged, she’ll keep her husband encouraged, and he’ll keep
the church encouraged.
Courage is
Pedigree’s child. Courage is Partner’s wife. Courage is Position. When your
pastor says, “Bless God! We’re an old King James Bible, separated church,” encourage that position.
You are doing great
things here in Bristol, but there is no telling what could happen in this
beautiful area if a band of people in one of these churches would say to the
man of God, “Go forward. We’re walking with you, Preacher.”
I’m so convinced
that what this nation needs is not a better president, better governors or
better school systems. What we need is better men of God, men who know God and
walk with God.
Here they are, the
ingredients of a great church—the land, the Lord, the law, a leader and
loyalty!
Whatever size your church is now, and wherever it is located in God’s earth, why don’t you plug in these simple but necessary elements and set out to have a truly great church!