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Northwest Baptist Witness Communications Team Leader/Editor: Cameron Crabtree Managing Editor, The Witness: Sheila Allen Graphic Design & Production Assistants: Jennifer Logue and Beckie Bruhn Circulation Services: Twyla Outhier Churches of the Northwest Baptist Convention provide the Northwest Baptist Witness for their individual members through the Cooperative Program. Individual subscriptions are available: $12/yr. in U.S. | $18/yr. int'l Published each month by: Northwest Baptist Convention Phone: 360-882-2100 | Fax: 360-882-2295 | E-mail: ISSN 0745-2195 Circulation: 14,000

Holy Week brought to life in college towns
Adapted for The Witness

PULLMAN — To emphasize the importance of Easter on the Washington State University campus in Pullman and at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Resonate Community wanted to more than distribute flyers that would end up filling trash cans without garnering even a moment’s attention from students.
So, leaders of the nearly 2-year-old church assembled to map out a unique experience for communicating the good news of God’s love during the traditional Holy Week.
The effort created anxiety for at least one of the leaders.
“The whole experience made my stomach hurt to be honest,” said Josh Martin, the church’s worship leader. “The entire week I couldn’t help but feel like this fragile relationship between the campus and the church was somehow in our hands, and somehow we had an opportunity to change things, to tell a better story, and it all made me nervous.”
The team eventually came up with a week-long series of interactive opportunities focused on the lives of the prominent figures around Jesus during his week of passion.
“The hope was to pose questions as present struggles that tie back to these people’s ancient realities, which in turn would segue into the story we were trying to tell all along,” noted Martin.
To contrast with the approach of clubs that typically have members walking around trying to distribute literature, the group set up a tent and tried to draw people in for the first four days with fair-trade coffee, contemporary music, artistic expression and opportunity for conversation.
Monday, day 1, spotlighted Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea who eventually ordered Jesus’ crucifixion.
The Resonate team painted “Are there things you want to forget?” onto a large Masonite board and provided black paint so students could come by, put their hand in the paint and leave a hand print on the board.
After leaving their mark, students could wash their hands in a basin of warm water, reminiscent of Pilate washing his hands just before condemning Jesus to die. The cups of coffee the group handed out bore labels that said, “What is truth? And Jesus stood silent. So Pilate called for water to wash his hands clean of this man.”
The next day focused on Judas. Resonate members emblazoned a second Masonite board with “What is not for sale?” The board was covered in stock market clippings and fake silver coins. People wrote with Sharpies or painted their answer on the board. Again to reinforce the story, the team printed labels for their coffee cups, this time with the message, “They counted out 30 pieces of silver and Judas led them to Jesus.”
The mother of Jesus was highlighted on Wednesday, day 3. “What has been your greatest loss?” marked a third board. The team pinned lines of cord between the boards with small cloths that had the word “weep” written on them. Students could write their loss on an index card and exchange it for a weep cloth.
The next two days, the group placed the spotlight on Jesus, with the theme “What would you give up your life for?” Black, helium-filled balloons were attached to a board on the ground, with silver markers available for students to respond with answers on the balloons. Then, they could pick up scissors and free the balloons from their strings with their answers written on them.
The group stapled invitations to Good Friday (“Experience the Day True Love Died”) and Easter (“Experience the Day True Love Rose”) services to small snacks and distributed them to more than 500 people.
“Our tent was a sight to see with boards, clotheslines, and balloons everywhere and we were physically throwing fruit snacks out as quickly as our interns could staple them,” Martin noted. “Maybe people trusted us by then, or maybe students just like fruit snacks. Either way, fliers were no longer a burden, no longer a disconnect, they had somehow begun to feel natural, like a small part of a greater engagement.”
In Pullman, 130 people attended the Good Friday service and 50 attended the one in neighboring Moscow, Idaho, site of the church’s second venue. More than 250 people attended the Easter experience.
Martin attributes the success of the church’s experimental venture to the church family’s serious focus on the Lenten season.
“As a body, we journeyed for 40 days through the same guided devotions, through the same prayers, and through the same scriptures,” he said. “We were unified, we were fasting, we were expecting, and we were praying big prayers together — daily.”
While the Holy Week events on the two university campuses may have looked a little disorderly, it reflected a desire to help students learn something important, according to Martin: “It was a like-mindedness that propelled us to be on campus each day with a humble urgency and a quiet confidence.”
WSU student Kate- Lynne Logan emphasized the importance of being on the students’ turf. “Holy week worked because we were quite literally ‘the body’,” she said. “Resonate does not have a building so there are no four walls to fall back on. We have our hands and our feet and our willing hearts and that is it.”
Liz Rodriguez, a Resonate intern at the University of Idaho, recalled a conversation she had with a student. “(She) really enjoyed watching our boards all week,” Rodriguez said. “She felt they showed who we are as a generation and that these boards should be kept for a life time.”
Brian Newman, a WSU student noted the importance of the alternative experience. “Due to Resonate’s presence on campus I was able to have spiritual conversations with friends I would not have otherwise been able to have,” he said.
Martin said Resonate Church is simply trying to learn the language of students around them in order to share the message of the gospel.
“Our church is growing into its personality, we are learning how to speak a language, and glory by glory God is revealing to us his plan,” he said. “We know that God, not coffee and art, is our only chance at reaching students, and we know that Jesus’ great hope for the campus is Jesus, but we also refuse to not participate as God unfolds things.
Holy Week, noted Martin, was “another act of participation, another attempt at obedience and another opportunity for us to extend a hand to the campus, and see, if just maybe, they are interested in a better story.”

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True worship changes lives, consultant says
By Cameron Crabtree

VANCOUVER — Churches hoping to make changes in their forms of worship must begin by addressing personal and corporate spiritual barriers, a worship consultant told Northwest Baptist worship leaders recently.
Joy McAfee, a project leader for LifeWay Christian Resources’ new worship resource, spoke to about 40 participants at an April 17-18 worship leadership conference at the Northwest Baptist Center in Vancouver, Wash.
Citing Psalm 15:1-2 as a framework, McAfee urged churches to regularly address spiritual challenges in order to help genuine worship take place.
“A lifestyle of worship is a prerequisite,” McAfee said. “Pray for God to transform you into a worshiper; not a worship leader, but a worshiper.”
McAfee listed common spiritual barriers to worship:
• Unconfessed sin. “There’s a lot of that going on. How can we live blameless lives if there’s unconfessed sin?”
• Lack of concern for unbelievers. “In a lot of our churches there’s so much concern for believers and building up the church that there’s little concern for unbelievers.”
• Pleasing people rather than God. “God knows our heart and you’ve got to remember that, no matter what happens.”
• Lack of commitment to spiritual transformation. “We really can’t say that we have sincere hearts … if we aren’t willing to commit 24/7.”
• Focal imbalance in worship. “This has to do with the timing and the balance of what is included in your worship services.”
McAfee also noted the importance of scripture as a foundation for worship, especially in the face of criticism worship leaders so often face: “Sometimes criticism can be valid and we need to be able to listen to criticism, but we also need to be able to put it aside for the word of God if it goes in contrast with scripture.”
Worship Snapshot
McAfee recommended churches  periodically take a “worship snapshot” to assess the way worship services engage regular participants and visitors.
The snapshot can help assess matters such as the sense of welcome people experience, the kinds of elements used in the course of the worshiper’s experience, the amount of technology used and the kind of music used.
Visiting churches and making those kinds of observations got McAfee started on consulting with more churches about designing and implementing “balanced worship” services, she told participants.
“I would go and meet with the pastor and whoever was invited to sit down and I’d sharewith them my observation,” McAfee said. “It validated a lot of things they thought were true and gave them an outside perspective.”
Often, she said, the key to helping churches make a breakthrough was simply in identifying what their challenges were.
“Then they were able to generate their own solutions,” she noted. “ It wasn’t necessarily a function of my recommendations.”
Church Culture
She urged worship leaders to understand the unique personality of individual churches.
“Every church has its own culture and it’s not just about your cultural background or ethnicity,” she said. “It’s found in your values, beliefs, traditions and the way of doing things.”
Churches should never be considered as one-size-fits-all, she warned.
“When you worship, your worship should reflect the personality of the people who make up the church,” she urged. “Sometimes, our worship doesn’t look anything like the people who are there.”
She noted her own difficulty in finding a church home after moving to Minneapolis because the worship experiences varied so greatly from the lifestyles of those living in the area.
“If your worship service doesn’t reflect the personality and culture of your church then you have to look at that,” she said.
Worship Balance
To help worship leaders achieve “balance” in their gatherings, McAfee proposed a four-fold planning grid she terms “You-me-us-them.”
The “you” in her grid is meant to emphasize God. “Some elements of worship happen and are meant to focus entirely on God,” she noted.
The “me” is intended to challenge the individual. “It’s all about connection and communication and the relationship with God and man,” she said. “The way I see it, it’s interactive, it’s give and take and it’s fluid. … It’s about my life changing and being refined by his fire.”
The “us” relates to the larger community of faith. “This is the fellowship and discipleship, elements that have to do with the corporate life of the church,” she noted.
The component relating to “them” emphasizes evangelism and missions. “You know who the ‘us’ are. It’s different in every church, but what elements in our worship are focused on evangelism, service and interacting with those who are not part of us?” she asked.
McAfee noted balance in worship doesn’t equate to a formula.
“Balance doesn’t mean they’re all equal and it doesn’t mean they stay the same,” she said. “The dynamic is always changing, but at least once a year you might want to get out something like this and look at your balance in worship.”
Diversity in Worship
McAfee also noted the importance of diversity and creativity in worship expressions. She noted Col. 3:16-17 as providing appropriate boundaries for the whole church to use its spiritual gifts in worship.
“I love this verse because it gives freedom for us to use all our gifts, but to do so within the boundaries that God has set for us,” she said. “There is a way and attitude in which it has to be done.
“Don’t feel like you’re stuck into a really small box,” McAfee added. “Now, culturally you may feel that, but this verse tells us there is great creativity and diversity in how we worship as long we do so in the name of Jesus with thankfulness in our hearts.”
One way to assess whether genuine worship is taking place, McAfee said, is changed lives in the congregation.
“If you’re not changing then I’d suggest you’re not really coming face-to-face with God,” she said. “Because when we encounter God, we can’t help but change just like (OT prophet) Isaiah did.”
A lot of times, McAfee said, the changes result from repentance, confession and forgiveness.
“New heart attitudes will change everything in worship,” she suggested.” When you truly encounter God, your heart will change.”
Practical Changes
For churches finding it difficult to make changes in worship forms, McAfee suggested “2-degree difference” principle may help.
“If you change something two degrees it may not look like much, but if you take that two degrees and keep up those changes over time  and keep adding to them, you’ll see a big difference,” she noted. “Take one thing at a time … and make two degrees of change, keep up with it and then add another two degree change, track it and then add another two degree change.”
She also encouraged worship leaders to take time off in order to visit other churches to stay in touch with what is happening elsewhere.

Oregon church continues India partnership
By Sheila Allen

NARASARAOPET, India — Building on work accomplished in previous visits, mission team members from Greater Gresham (Ore.) Baptist Church, working in partnership with Simplicity Ministries, traveled almost 48 hours to arrive in a city of staggering need. A multi-pronged approach, which targeted those needs on several fronts, divided the 21 team members into groups who worked for months to raise funds prior to the trip.
“This was a mission that was bigger than we could ever accomplish in our own power,” said team leader Mike Thibodeaux. “We were able to purchase 240 units of a new device for the illiterate, the Megavoice Player, with a pre-recorded message of the Hope Story.” 
The device is solar powered, cannot be changed by the end user and will help locals keep the gospel message true from deviation. At a cost of $35 each, the players are more affordable than other devices currently on the market and hold up to 160 hours of dialogue.
Teams were arranged by their function, and included a medical unit, local village teams and a children’s ministry team, which worked in three orphanages.
The medical team, under the direction of Dr. Bob Sayson, included a group of nurses, medical students and other professionals who gave health care to over 1,350 patients in the six days the free clinic was held. The team was joined by nursing students from a local Indian school, and patients were able to secure medication from a pharmacy set up at the clinic. Most of these people were field workers who had aches and pains from daily strains on their body and harsh living conditions. People walked for miles and brought their family members to receive medical attention for no cost or obligation.
“We had a team of veterans and rookies, and did not finish seeing patients until 8:30 p.m. each night,” Sayson said. “We were perplexed in how we could take care of these people. But every patient was invited to be prayed for, and God’s spirit led at least 12 people to accept him as Lord through the medical clinic.”
Local residents lined up for hours to receive the care they could not afford under normal circumstances and used the assistance of translators arranged for by Sushil Kumar, who directs the work of the Samraksha Society, a local non-profit group who strives to reflect Christ through serving the poor and meeting their physical needs. Team members found patients to be severely uninformed about general health issues including a lack of understanding about how proper nutrition and hydration could affect their overall well being.
Medical assistant Carole Byers prepared for the trip by engaging in much prayer, as she asked God for the privilege of leading someone to the Lord. Even though Byers had worked in a dental clinic in previous years, she and another team member were called upon to pull teeth when a local dentist did not show up.
“I was able to share with and lead 11 people to the Lord,” Byers said. “I was so thankful to be there and so blessed by the experience.”
Team members set up a foot washing station, which was a memorable event for many involved.
“The highlight of the trip was the day a team member set up chairs to do foot washing outside the pharmacy,” said registered nurse Martha Fort. “I cried frequently as I looked out and saw it taking place. The caste system is still intact and these souls are at the bottom. ‘White people’ are at the top and our offering to wash their feet was a big deal. They were also touched by the prayers offered for them. It gave a whole new meaning to the passage about Jesus washing his disciple’s feet and Peter’s saying ‘No Lord. I need to wash your feet.’ One person said something similar to this. We are excited that we brought some hope to them and the message that Jesus loves and cares about them through this event.”
In addition to the medical clinic, Greater Gresham members led nightly services in multiple locations that drew 200 to 400 people, depending on the location. Issues that frequently arose, such as power outages, bugs, heat, humidity and other dilemmas, were handled with the assistance of local pastors and interpreters in a calm and orderly manner. Pastor Keith Evans and others led a conference for pastors from surrounding areas.
“When we arrived at the first village, children poured out and surrounded our vehicle, as they were so excited,” said village team leader Dave Bergeson. “Our team had a well thought out display of games and Bible stories, and over 70 percent of the children present accepted Christ.”
“I never thought I would have so much fun,” said T.J. Caldwell, who organizes ongoing donor support at Greater Gresham for the children from three orphanages associated with the project. “We were able to pray for a boy who has AIDs, and I am able to say that the prayers offered here makes a real impact on these orphans, so please don’t stop.”
The partnership between Greater Gresham and the Samraksha Society, led Sushil Kumar and his wife, Sanga, continues, with local residents enjoying the positive results, such as clean water flowing from pumps installed with donated funds. Team members were able to participate in the baptism of some who accepted Christ as a result of their efforts before they returned to Oregon.
“I am very thankful to all the team members for the time, energy and money expended to come here,” said Kumar. “I continue to look forward to expanding the kingdom.” in multiple locations that drew 200 to 400 people, depending on the location. Issues that frequently arose, such as power outages, bugs, heat, humidity and other dilemmas, were handled with the assistance of local pastors and interpreters in a calm and orderly manner. Pastor Keith Evans and others led a conference for pastors from surrounding areas.
“When we arrived at the first village, children poured out and surrounded our vehicle, as they were so excited,” said village team leader Dave Bergeson. “Our team had a well thought out display of games and Bible stories, and over 70 percent of the children present accepted Christ.”
“I never thought I would have so much fun,” said T.J. Caldwell, who organizes ongoing donor support at Greater Gresham for the children from three orphanages associated with the project. “We were able to pray for a boy who has AIDs, and I am able to say that the prayers offered here makes a real impact on these orphans, so please don’t stop.”
The partnership between Greater Gresham and the Samraksha Society, led by Sushil Kumar and his wife, Sanga, continues, with local residents enjoying the positive results, such as clean water flowing from pumps installed with donated funds. Team members were able to participate in the baptism of some who accepted Christ as a result of their efforts before they returned to Oregon.
“I am very thankful to all the team members for the time, energy and money expended to come here,” said Kumar. “I continue to look forward to expanding the kingdom.”