By Thomas Yerman

Recently, I attended a regional gathering of pastors where we were to discuss how to “replenish” the Church. I shared my thoughts prior to the meeting with the host pastor who said, “You need to share this.” What I write here includes a few more thoughts than what I shared with the gathering that day.

We are living in a culture in which many are turning away from the Church—away from a belief in God. We’re in the midst of a war against truth. The reality of this war reminds us of the importance of God’s call to persevere.

Sound Doctrine

Sound doctrine affects people in different ways. Some respond to solid biblical teaching by feeling encouraged and strengthened in their faith. The same teaching, however, puts others off, impacting them in negative says. Timothy was warned of a coming time when people would not put up with sound doctrine. They resist it, some even to the point of leaving a church.

Whatever the Holy Spirit does through the teaching of God’s Word, our part as ministers is to preach and teach it correctly. This is so important in fulfilling our call.

Paul encourages us through the words he spoke to Timothy:  “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:3, 5). Days of hardship or lost attendance should not distract us from how we are to teach God’s Word.

Even when we’re feeling weak, we have promises encouraging us to keep God’s Word and not deny his Name. God’s promises admonish us to endure until Christ’s return. “By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:19).

The promise Christ spoke to the church in Philadelphia, he speaks to all his Church: “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on earth” (Revelation 3:10). If we hold on, we will escape the Great Tribulation and gain the imperishable crown of life. That is a big deal!

Whatever we plan to do to replenish our local assembly, we must continue to build the Church upon the biblical foundation God has given us. That ensures us of the help of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Church must hold steady in being a “house of prayer” (Luke 19:46) even as pastors hold firm in teaching the Word of God without compromise as absolute truth. The healthy function of the Church depends on it (Matthew 4:4).

As you know, the Holy Spirit moves in conjunction with the Word of God through the enabling of people with lifestyles of prayer and biblical devotion. It doesn’t get much simpler or more powerful than that.

No Fear

We must not fear people. We must not confuse their feelings of conviction by the Holy Spirit with their feelings of being offended. The Holy Spirit inspired and authored the Scripture (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Timothy 3:16). So we must speak it clearly and correctly, allowing him to do the work he wants to do in the lives of people (Hebrews 4:12-13). We must speak the Word boldly and correctly with love, courage, and application for our day.

The Church needs to learn how to handle what we are facing today in America. We are being threatened with persecution and the loss of our God-given freedom, not to forget our security and prosperity. The goal of the enemy is to stop its opponent from resisting him. The enemy will do everything in his power to wear people out and discourage them—with the ultimate goal of causing people to lose hope, be silent and afraid, and walk away from God and his Word.

If pastors are not careful, we can begin to accommodate fear, water down God’s Word, or become overly distracted with finding a plan to “feed” the people in a way that will grow our congregation for the sake of increasing numbers or paying the bills. This can lead to other problems and adverse consequences. We must be alert to any wrong, misleading influences. God is not so concerned about impressive appearances. His concern is about the glory—the glory of his harvest. He is concerned that people are fed the truth so they can mature and be discipled to be more like his Son. That is why, when distractions and disputes arose in the early church, the apostles determined to keep their attention focused on the ministry of the Word and prayer (Acts 6:4).

Bottom Line

To replenish God’s Church, we must continue to build on the biblical principle of persevering in preaching the Word and prayer at all costs—even in the face of death. We are running to the finish line! There is yet one more hill to climb, one more vista to encounter. This is not a time for timidity or compromise!

God has called us to see the growth and maturity of his Church. Pastors are not called to feed the world, but to feed God’s Church. The Church needs God’s truth, God’s strength, and God’s leading in order to stand, resist, and persevere against its opposing forces. As we do our part and fulfill our call, Christ will build his Church (Matthew 16:18). Slip your name into that verse and hold your head up high!

“If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:7–8).

Thomas Yerman is an FCA pastor ministering at Living Hope Church in Elk Grove Village.

by Michael McCartney

It began one day last April with blood in my urine. Concerned, I called my urologist and set up an appointment, which included all sorts of tests, scans, and scopes. Within a week the answer was confirmed: a tumor on my bladder.

Cancer, stage 3—not good. The doctor said it looked as if it had been there a while, though I had just seen him four months before.

Surgery was scheduled for Monday, just 11 days after the blood first appeared. The doctor removed the tumor and treated the site with a form of immune therapy. He said surgery went well, though it was extremely hard to get to the tumor because of its location. He most likely would have to go back in.

So my journey through cancer had begun. And I had enrolled in the school of higher learning—my unexpected journey through the valley of shadows.

The First Dove

When the doctor first examined me, I left his office in shock and walked out into a severe storm. I drove my truck home through the storm, went in, and sat in my chair. Looking out of our bay window at the raging storm, I started talking to the Lord about my cancer.

As I prayed, I opened my eyes and I saw…a dove! There in the midst of the storm was a dove looking back at me through the window!

The dove’s feathers were being blown around by the stormy winds, but it kept looking right at me. Pellets of cold rain hit the dove, and its eyes would close to shut out the pounding rain. But again and again the dove opened its eyes to look at me.

I knew from Scripture that doves are a sign of the Holy Spirit. In that moment, in the middle of a storm, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit! So I prayed, “Lord, I need your help with this cancer!” and I felt the Spirit say: “I will be with you through this stormy journey. You will come out the other end of the storm.”

The dove stayed around for about five minutes. Then the phone rang—it was Tiffany, my daughter, calling me to see what the doctor had found. When I turned around, the dove was gone.

The Second Dove

I hit another rough day in my journey when the doctor called me. I was in a church staff meeting at the time, but I had recently come through my second surgery and biopsy.

The pathology report said things were not looking good. Cancer was lining my bladder “like a carpet.” Explaining the results, the doctor suggested I should consider removing my bladder, my lymph nodes, and my prostate—the “Gold Plan.”

“If you don’t do this,” he said, “this type of cancer could take your life.” It was an aggressive, rapidly spreading type of cancer.

I left the meeting and went home to pray and talk with my wife, Kathy. We prayed and decided to stay on the same track—no removal of important parts. I chose the “Silver Plan”—and ask God for a miracle.

At one point in our talk and prayer, I said to Kathy, “It would be nice to get another visitation from a dove today.”

That night, Brock and Brittany, a young couple from church brought us a meal and with it, a heart-touching card. But most remarkably, they also gave me a small, glass dove.

They explained. The Holy Spirit had prompted them to stop at a store to get a dove as a reminder of the dove in my window and remind me of God’s promise: “I will be with you through this stormy journey. You will come out at the other end of the storm.”

It was another God moment—a second dove with a reminder of God’s promise and presence.

It was another God moment—
a second dove with a reminder
of God’s promise and presence.

Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”

I was struck by the phrase reminding me that I am just walking through a valley of shadows while the Lord is with me, right by my side! The valley has a shadow of death lurking off somewhere in the distance, trying to torment me, wanting me to resign myself to it—as if there were no hope.

But with the Lord by my side, all things are possible!

Years ago I saw the movie, A Beautiful Mind, starring Russel Crowe. It’s the true story of a professor who suffered from schizophrenia. “Voices” in his mind tormented him, luring him away from reality and creating havoc in his family, career, and life.

After a long battle, the professor learned to ignore the voices. He choose to live in reality and not delusion. He admitted to another professor, however, that the voices were always there, off in the shadows, beckoning him to come to them, tempting him to listen and pay attention. But he chose to ignore and even reject the voices. He chose instead to focus on his family and his work.

For me, the shadow of cancer is like those delusional characters in the movie. Cancer taunted me, standing off in the shadows. But Psalm 23 and other Scriptures reminded me, “I will be with you, Mike, through this unexpected journey and through the valley of shadows.”

I didn’t choose this journey. It was unexpected. But in my cancer journey I choose to focus on the Lord. I’m sharing my journey with my church and others. And I choose to focus on God’s promise—and the Doves. I choose to be positive, to be filled with faith, to hope in Jesus.

Every day I tell the Lord, “I will praise you through this valley and honor you! No matter what happens!”

Psalm 46:1-3 says, “¹ God is our refuge and strength, an everpresent help in trouble. ² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, ³ though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

I know my unexpected journey is not over! I have a year of maintenance immune therapy to go through, but the Lord has been with me through it all encouraging me along the way. I trust him as well as my doctors. Jesus repeatedly promises in Scripture, “I will be with you!”

He will be with you too! “God is no respecter of persons.” He will walk with you through your unexpected journey and be by your side to bring you out the other end. All you have to do is ask him to come help you too!

He will!

Mike McCartney is Senior Pastor of Christian Hills Church in Orland Hills, Illinois.

by Thomas Yerman

The end of each year brings us a special opportunities to reflect upon the presence of the faithful, loving, and all-powerful “God with us.”

On Thanksgiving Day we took time to reflect on those things we are thankful for. As we head toward Christmas celebrations, we find ourselves reflecting upon the birth of Jesus Christ—the Son of God who came to earth, put on flesh, and walked among us.

This celebratory season has to be the most beautiful time of the year. It’s a time when our thoughts and hearts move determinedly towards hope, love, joy, peace, and the One who promised them—Jesus, “the reason of the season.”

Let’s reflect on the first word in the list—hope.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. It’s believing or wanting something to happen. We’ve all expressed hope, but as we can see, hope defined by an American dictionary does not express any certainty, just a wish of its possibility.

Now let’s look to Scripture and further define hope. “You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas” (Psalm 65:5). This verse reveals hope as a person, the person of God. And that changes a wishful thought into certainty, both in the definition and the experience of hope.

When you add God into the definition, it expands hope’s reach, bringing a person into a state of being sure of something. Why? Because hope rests on the person of God and so the promises of his Word. Believers trust everything that God has said or promised.

In fact, trust is what makes a person a believer. Our hope in God is not just something we wish for or dream about. It’s a sure confidence. When we have a biblical hope, it not only desires something good for the future, it expects it to happen. And since God cannot lie, he is our only hope.

Christmas is the fulfillment of God’s Word of the coming Messiah. God sending his Son to earth is the ultimate expression and gift of God’s love for us. Yet, there are so many more promises and treasures that we can discover in the Word of God.  As believers we are right to hunger to know what other great things we can expect from him. God is awesome!

Christmas is a time of remembering and being reminded of how important it is to see things through the eyes of God. We must constantly be moving in a direction to build our faith so that we can hold on to our hope. They work together. When our hope rests on the Word of God, we experience growth in our faith. And when we use our faith in God to look to the future, we will have hope. Our hope is a Person of promise, who forgives us and transforms us into his likeness. Hope is a biblical principle and a strong spiritual force. Be encouraged.

“The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father’s will, Jesus became poor and was born in a stable so that 30 years later he might hang on a cross.” (J. I. Packer)

Jesus fulfilled God’s will that he be sent to earth and give the victory to us. As we take our stand during these difficult times, let us remember that we have a hope that is rock solid, a hope that cannot be taken away from us.

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1).

“While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Thomas Yerman is an FCA pastor ministering at Living Hope Church in Elk Grove Village.

“The men who went to try to rescue the five brought back to me from Jim’s body his wrist watch, and from the Curaray beach, the blurred pages of his college prayer-notebook. There was no funeral, no tombstone for a memorial…. No legacy then? Was it “just as if he had never been”? “The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Jim left for me, in memory, and for us all, in these letters and diaries, the testimony of a man who sought nothing but the will of God, who prayed that his life would be “an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”  —from the Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Elliot.

by Jeff Martin

October 1, 2021, marked our 30th anniversary of serving here in Chetek, Wisconsin.

That was us in 1991, as pictured in The Chetek Alert.

Since arriving in the “City of Lakes” back on October 1, 1991, a lot of water has flowed under the Long Bridge on the north end of town. Over the course of 30 years, we have lived and raised a family here. To date, I have preached 1,022 regular Sunday morning messages (not including uncounted youth and other special event messages). 

Over 30 years I’ve preached and taught the Scriptures, prayed for people, and conducted numerous hospital and pastoral visits. I’ve ministered to young and old, single and married. I’ve led Sunday school classes for kids and shared the Word with “old folk,” too. I’ve presided at weddings and funerals, dedicated babies, and prayed over more people heading out on mission than I can easily recall. I’ve listened to those who are brokenhearted and disappointed, and I’ve sought to console those who have described themselves as lost.

All these activities (and many more like them) are standard fare for a “one-horse” parish like the one I serve. But in my particular situation, over three decades I’ve also moonlighted in many other capacities—whether that’s driving the hearse for the local funeral home, coaching kids at the middle school and high school, writing for the hometown newspaper, performing in community theater, and presiding at church, school, and city meetings. And, of course, the most significant addition to my resume in recent years is serving as mayor of our city since 2016. I think it’s fair to say I get around.

Since October 1st was a beautiful day, I drove out to Lakeview Cemetery and went looking for Rev. Runar and Ruth Mattson’s marker. Rev. and Mrs. Mattson founded Chetek Full Gospel Tabernacle (now renamed “The Refuge”) in 1956. It was during his time of service that the lots where our sanctuary now stands were purchased, the building built and the mortgage satisfied prior to his untimely death on January 1, 1975. By all accounts he was a good and godly man revered by his wife and children. While the church was small at his passing (frankly, it still is), what greater legacy could he have left other than being loved and respected by his family and the community he had so faithfully served.

Printed at the bottom of Pastor Mattson’s marker is his last sermon: “There is a time to be born and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2).

Since his death, six have followed him as pastor of  our church: Jonathan Reine (1975), Del Grandstrand (1975-1977), Chester Logelin (1977-80), David Bakken (1979-1980), John Tuttle (1981-91), and myself. Del, Chester and David have long since gone to their reward, Jonathan no longer is in pastoral ministry, and John presently has been serving a congregation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for many years. Each in their time here made deposits into the life of the kingdom of God in our town and beyond, but only God can say—and, ultimately, will say—which was of eternal value and which was not (see 1 Corinthians 3:12-15). The same goes for me.

For the last few months I have been reading Shadow of the Almighty: the Life and Testament of Jim Elliot. Following his death in 1956, his wife, Elizabeth took the journals he had kept and the letters he had written to put together a biography. As it happened, it was on October 1st—30 years to the day since arriving in Chetek—that I came to the end of the book. 

Upon his death, all Jim Elliot left was a wrist watch, some well-worn clothes, and a one-year-old daughter. He had no life insurance policy. Their home in the wilds of Ecuador would rightly be considered a crude shack by any definition. But considering his influence on the cause of missions and the ongoing life of disciples worldwide, he “done real good” for his nearly 30 years of living. (He was 29 when he died.) Ultimately, only God can evaluate the worth of his ministry—and mine—rightly. Best to leave it there.

Honestly, I’m just grateful to be here. I’m thankful for the life we’ve made here, the friends we’ve made, and the things we’ve been able to be a part of. When I re-read Psalm 16:6-7 “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me” (NIV), I see our home at the corner of Fifth and Banks, the “church behind the Dairy Queen,” downtown Chetek and the nature trail behind Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High and Middle School.

Boundary lines in pleasant places.

I see it all, and the multitude of lives that have touched ours over three decades of living here. However long my service to this fellowship and this community may last, I pray to be found faithful to my call, to my post, and to them. 

“As for you, go your way until the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days, you will rise again to receive the inheritance set aside for you” (Daniel 12:13, NLT).

Jeff Martin has for 30 years been pastor of The Refuge, Chetek, Wisconsin.

Some are perceiving it, others are not, but everyone is experiencing it. We are living in days of darkness when evil is reigning.

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1 ESV).

We are seeing our government and other entities being overtaken by spiritual forces of evil. We are accepting the marching orders of radicals, the breakdown and overturning of social and sexual mores, and the abandonment of basic law and order. Our religious liberty is being threatened while lies, deceit, and hypocrisy go unpunished. The fear of God, our Creator, has been subordinated to the fear of man, merely part of creation. Of special concern is the apostasy, the falling away of believers.

Although the wicked continue to conspire and plot evil, the time is coming when God will suddenly shoot his arrow of judgment and bring the wicked down. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Until then we must now, more than ever, stand up and contend for the truth (Jude 3). We need to be bold and courageous, unwilling to compromise, and unmoving in faith. “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1).

These days are calling us to have an unwavering faith and to be a bright light. We are set apart by God and for God. We trust in the name of our Lord! Having that kind of trust means that we have a confidence to stand firm based on the character and reputation of God himself. Our relationship with God is built on his character and his reputation. And because of that relationship, we have every reason to be encouraged during these times of testing and tribulation.

God is faithfully moving according to his plan and his purpose for glory. We are obliged to continue to shine brightly in our faith and for the truth knowing who God is, whom we belong to, and why we are here. True believers are not to be entangled with the world and these evil spirits. We are called by God to be separate and stand out and up for the truth, clean, pure, and undefiled.

We must remain in the Word to know the Word to live the Word and to share the Word. Whether it be from the pulpits or in the streets, we believers must stop telling stories to connect only on an emotional level with people. Rather, we must be letting God’s word speak for itself, allowing the Holy Spirit to convict the heart and change the spirit and person.

I personally believe we’ve become people so sensitive we’re afraid to speak the truth for fear of causing others to feel offended. I’ll let you in on a secret, truth offends us all. Don’t be afraid of it!

This is the hour to stand fervently proclaiming the truth to a nation and a culture adamantly rejecting the truth, but needing it so desperately more. This is not a time to retreat, but to stand up for truth moving forward and advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Messiah! “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16 NIV).

Thomas Yerman is an FCA pastor ministering at Living Hope Church in Elk Grove Village.