Mobilization Update - God's Kingdom in CoquillePosted: 04/19/10

The following article was submitted by Scott Dement, Pastor of Coquille Church of the Nazarene, in Coquille, Oregon.  Does your church have the faith that this church does?

2 Timothy 4:12 was my inspiration in High School to start a Bible Study in our school, preach at our baccalaureate, and hold a high moral standard through my teenage years. When I became a pastor in Coquille, OR, I wanted to hold onto that inspiration, but I wasn’t sure what God’s Kingdom coming looked like here.

The spiritual vacuum in secular teens and the spiritual apathy of church teens is appalling. I’m disturbed at the notion of “30 is the new 13,” and 20 somethings who are enabled to be childish by “helicopter parents.” In the midst of this cultural crisis, it seems the only moral group (not even Christian) doing something about it is the Mormons. I read a recent statistic that 60% of Mormon students do their 2 years of service. It’s time for the Church to step up.

In the fall of 2008, I had been meeting with three college aged men doing a Bible Study, preparing them for personal evangelism. If they completed the study and a weekend mission trip, I promised to help them join a Jesus Film Team for a week in South America. They weren’t faithful to the Bible Study and their parents disabled them from doing the weekend trip.

So, when I got to our denominational missions convention in April of 2009 and heard about Extreme Peru, I was hooked. Finally, I found a structure and a vision to engage a directionless generation and a church that didn’t know what to do with them. I met with an Extreme representative, Brent Deakins, over supper and asked him if he had room for five students. He assured me he did, but was surprised that we had so many students available for the mission. As it turns out, we didn’t have five, we only had two students willing to apply for Extreme Nazarene, but they were both accepted.

Then reality set in. How would we raise $30,000 for our students to go to Peru? We’re a church that averages 110 in a town of 4,000. I had already scheduled a two month sabbatical between the time these two students would leave. (Tim left in September of 2009 and Henrietta in February of 2010). Our annual budget was only $140,000 and with the down turn in the economy, we were about $1,000 short each month. Our annual world evangelism budget was only $13,000 and we had already committed that amount to other missionaries. All of a sudden, Extreme Nazarene didn’t just sound extreme, it seemed ridiculous.

But, we believed that God really did call us to raise the standard for our teens, he really did have a great vision for Peru, and we could join him where he was clearly at work. We prayed that God would accomplish his plan that was bigger than ours. I spent one Sunday communicating the need for our students back in August of 2009 when Extreme rep, Travis Miner, came and talked to our teens and met with the families of those considering the venture.  Those students followed the strategy he set out for them regarding a simple fund raising campaign. And then we watched God provide like we could not have planned. There were occasional announcements regarding how our students were doing in the process, but it did not consume our church or our finances. Each student was responsible for his and her fund raising. This was their learning opportunity and their chance to see God work through them.

Have you ever seen teens desperate to do what God wants? These two students spoke in front of other churches, called people they barely knew, and talked to everyone they did know about this project. These teens were desperate to see God work and their prayer life, their devotional life, their witness here in Coquille, all went up dramatically. They had a vision from God that only God could meet. As a result, one student had leaders from his place of work contribute to his mission. The other one had a school teacher and several unchurched classmates come to her sending service. People inside and outside the church joined God’s plan for Peru. Desperation for God is a dangerous, and contagious thing.

For eight years, I’ve been convinced that we need to start a new church in our county. Only 20% of people say they are Christians, that many don’t show up at church each Sunday. There is definitely a need for another healthy and holy church here. We’ve never been able to get out of the talking phase at the church board level. But, when we had two teens who decided they would go to Peru to start three churches each, we didn’t tell them no. And now that we’ve seen God do something so amazing, we’re ready to reach into our community in ways we had only dared talk about behind closed doors.

We keep in touch with our missionaries, the ones from our church, our children who have sacrificed and pledged to start new churches. We visit with them over Skype during services, get letters from them, pray for them regularly, and read their blogs. We’re more connected with the mission of God around the world and what he can do in us than we’ve ever been. We actually see ourselves as missionaries now.

I told Brent and Travis, and I still believe that the only problem with Extreme Nazarene is the name. If this kind of commitment and model for ministry is still extreme in 15 years, we will have missed God’s blessing for his church. I expect that when my 5 year old is ready join the team, we’ll be calling it Normal Nazarene.

A pastor who was willing to risk.
Two teens willing to go.
A church who has faith.
A God who calls us to go where we cannot go alone.

Yes, God’s kingdom continues to come even in this little town of Coquille.

-- Pastor Scott Dement