Human Trafficking in the Church — Part 11
Recognizing the Six Characteristics of the Religious Spirit of Babylon
The six characteristics of the religious spirit of Babylon are the same today as they were when they were first recorded in Scripture in Genesis 11.
3. Building an Empire (continued)
“Then they said, ‘Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves’—Genesis 11:4 (NLT)
I believe that most Christian leaders do not intend to become human traffickers. It happens gradually, over time, as the ministry grows. It often begins with a dedicated Christian minister who has a genuine call of God on his life to accomplish a unique purpose in the Kingdom of God. To fulfill this purpose, the minister may seek out people to help him. This is when the trafficking often begins.
The leader’s heart motivation will determine whether he will become a servant of all, after Jesus’ example, or a spiritual human trafficker, after Saul’s example or Pharaoh’s example. But even a minister whose motivation is pure can adopt the methods of spiritual human trafficking and become a trafficker of people, rather than a servant. This often happens simply because these leaders have never experienced models of leadership that were based on serving people, rather than ruling over them.
Jesus asked people to follow him in discipleship, but he never trafficked people, because he wasn’t trying to build an empire here on Earth. His motivation was to restore their relationships with God and to help them fulfill God’s individual callings for their lives. He was motivated by unselfish love, not personal ambition.
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”— John 15:13 (NKJV)
In contrast to Jesus’ approach to leadership, what often happens today is that a leader will have a vision for a purpose to be accomplished. Then that leader will determine what is needed in order to fulfill that vision. Then the leader will begin to recruit people to fill roles that are needed to bring that vision into reality. So the focus of the leader is on meeting the needs of his vision, rather than meeting the needs of the people. People are used to feed the leader’s vision, rather than using the vision to feed the people.
When a Christian minister recruits people to help in ministry without regard to their individual callings in life, that minister becomes a human trafficker. A spiritual human trafficker pulls people away from God’s personal callings and purposes for their lives and instead, uses those people to enrich himself and to serve the interests of the Christian organization.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
I once attended a young church that was just getting started. I was occasionally asked to teach at this church. My teaching was well-received, and I was comfortable in this role because that is part of what I am called to do. It is part of my individual purpose.
Later, I began training people in prophetic evangelism. This is also something that is very much a part of me. It is who I am.
But then, as the church began to get more organized, I received a text message from one of the leaders asking if I would be willing to join the church hospitality team and greet people as they entered the building on Sunday mornings.
This was a “red flag.” For me, it was déjà vu all over again.
Years before, I had been in another young church, and the pastor had sent me a text message with virtually the same request. I had been alerted a few days before by a dream in which I saw the pastor recruiting people to work for him as prostitutes. I politely rejected that request.
Now, years later, history seemed to be repeating itself in a different church. This was a sign to me that the leadership of this young church was going to be building the organization through spiritual human trafficking.
I was not asked to join the hospitality team because the leaders saw the gifts and callings of God on my life and felt that this was the best way to help me move forward in the destiny that God had called me to fulfill. I was asked to join the hospitality team because there was an empty spot on the church organization chart that they wanted to fill. They needed a warm body to fill a position, regardless of what gifts and callings God had planted in that person’s life. They wanted to use me to feed their vision for the organization.
I understand why Christian leaders use these methods, but they are following the wrong model. We need a new leadership paradigm in Christian organizations that is modeled after Jesus’ example as the servant of all.
Instead of determining individual destinies by the empty slots in an organizational chart, leaders need to realize that the people in our Christian organizations come with their purposes already installed! Rather than forcing people into a mold that doesn’t fit them, leaders need to discern the purpose and destiny that comes packaged with every believer and help them discover and enter into that purpose.
I have experienced attempts to lure me into human trafficking from almost every single church and Christian ministry with which I have ever been involved. What protects me from being drawn into these trafficking schemes now is that I have a fairly clear understanding of what my purpose is. I have a fairly strong sense of my identity and what I am called to do in life. I was commissioned in a visitation from God on the night before my 47th birthday, and He has been faithful to provide specific guidance to me since then.
But most believers do not have this assurance yet. Most people are wandering through life still searching for their purpose. They may have no idea of the world-changing purpose that God has called them to fulfill. Most of us start out in this state. People who are in this place in life are vulnerable to spiritual human trafficking because if someone presents a role for them to fulfill, they may accept it simply because they have no idea if it is what they were destined to do or not. In this state, they can be easily enslaved by persuasive Christian leaders who need help to fulfill their own visions.
A Better Model
Church organizational charts need to be thrown away. If your church or ministry seeks to fill roles based on an organizational chart, that is a clear sign that your church is focused on using people to feed the organization, rather than using the organization to feed the people.
A better model would be for leaders to make themselves the servants of the people who come to them. In this model, leaders would discern the individual destiny and purpose within each person and partner with them in their search to discover and fulfill that purpose.
Recently someone asked me to recommend a good church in London, England.
I recommended that this friend look up St. Andrews Church, Chorleywood. Years ago, my heart leaped inside of me as I listened to the pastor of this church describe it as a place of launching people into ministries that were the passions of their hearts. If a church member had a vision to reach drug addicts in the city, the church would bless them to go forth into this ministry and would offer wise guidance and support for this new ministry. If others in the church also expressed a passion to be involved in reaching drug addicts, they were invited to contact the believer who had pioneered that ministry in their church.
This became a model for St. Andrew’s Church. New ministries sprang from the passions and callings of the ordinary believers in the church. These specialized ministries became the “life groups” where discipleship took place outside of the Sunday church services. A variety of these spinoff ministries began to emerge. Some believers might feel called to start a food bank, or focus on ministering to disabled citizens in the community, or senior citizens, or orphans, or prisoners. Whatever people group or need these church members seemed to be drawn to, they were encouraged and guided by the leadership to follow these callings. Dynamic discipleship and ministry occurred in these “life groups” that could never have been experienced in church services.
The pastor compared these spinoff ministry groups to “lifeboats” that were sent out from the safe harbor of the church leadership to accomplish specialized ministry purposes. Often, church members became so involved in these specialized ministries that had captured their hearts, that they didn’t make it back into the “safe harbor” regularly for each Sunday’s church services. And that was OK! Leadership saw the value in the ministry and discipleship that was happening in these “lifeboat” groups and gave them permission to follow God’s callings on their lives.
As I listened to the pastor describe this model of church leadership that supported and guided church members as they sought to follow the callings of God that they felt tugging at their hearts, I felt that I was finally hearing a description of a church that embodied the purpose of the five-fold ministry described in Ephesians 4:11-12!
“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.** Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work** and build up the church, the body of Christ.” (NLT)
As I listened to this pastor, I wished that I lived in London so that I could finally be part of a church that helped believers discover and enter into God’s callings for their lives!
Launching People into the Purposes of God
In the summer of 2011, I attended a conference at the Church of Acts in San Antonio, Texas. The conference speakers included Bob Jones, Bobby Conner, and Paul Keith Davis—all big names in the prophetic conference circuit. The Church of Acts, in contrast, was a relatively tiny church that didn’t even have a paved parking lot. I mentioned to one of the church members there that I was surprised that such a small church could draw such huge ministry names for a conference.
The church member replied to me that it is not a goal of the leaders of the Church of Acts to become a large church with a large building and thousands of members. Their goal instead is to provide the best training and preparation that they can, and then to send their members out to fulfill needs for ministry beyond the walls of the church.
“Wow! This is what church should be like!” I thought. Far from being a church that controls people and uses them to feed and grow the organization, the Church of Acts in San Antonio is more like a launching pad that propels disciples into their God-inspired purposes in life!
Instead of plugging people into spots based on an organizational chart, church leaders would do better to focus on preparing individual believers for their launch dates!
Saul of Tarsus was dramatically converted on the road to Damascus, but the church didn’t really seem to know what to do with him after that. When he tried to meet with believers in Jerusalem, they wanted nothing to do with him. (See Acts 9:26.) If it hadn’t been for Barnabas, whose name means “son of encouragement,” he might never have even been accepted by the believers there!
Saul proved himself over and over again by preaching boldly along with the apostles, but they still didn’t see any special role for him. When his life was threatened, they just sent him back home. (See Acts 9:30.)
But Barnabas still saw potential in Saul. When the church leaders sent Barnabas to Antioch, he reached out to Saul at his home and brought him to Antioch, giving him a platform to teach the believers there.
Saul might have spent the rest of his life back home in Tarsus if Barnabas had not seen potential in this man and positioned him to be launched into his life’s purpose. Because of Barnabas, Saul was included among the acknowledged prophets and teachers of Antioch, but he was still the last guy on the list. (See Acts 13:1.)
Thankfully, all of these men were sincere followers of Jesus and were able to hear and fully obey the Lord. Finally the Lord intervened and gave direct orders to launch Barnabas and Saul into their life’s purposes. (See Acts 13:2.)
The rest is history.
After being launched into his special calling by the church leaders, he was empowered to become the great Apostle Paul rather than languish his life away at home because a church couldn’t see a place for him in their organizational structure.
Sent Out
After God appeared to me in a dream on the night before my 47th birthday and called me to write with Him, I asked my pastor if he and the elders of the church would lay their hands on me and send me out just like they might send out a missionary to do the work that God had called him to do.
This was the same pastor that I had seen in the dream who was recruiting people to work as prostitutes for him. He hesitated a bit, saying that they didn’t normally do things like that, but he and the elders agreed.
I was inspired by the story of the Apostle Paul’s commissioning in Acts 13:3, and I really wanted to be blessed and sent out by the church leadership just as Paul was. I am so glad that I did!
On the Sunday of my commissioning, the pastor called me to the front of the church. I felt that I should be kneeling as a act of submission and humility, and so I knelt facing the congregation. It was a powerful experience for me. After the pastor and the elders prayed and officially sent me out to fulfill what God had called me to do, one of the elders shared a powerful vision that he had seen as he was praying for me. That was a very encouraging confirmation for me.
Maybe that little ceremony was not absolutely necessary, but I felt that it was a meaningful public declaration that I was dedicated to fulfilling God’s calling on my life.
I believe that we need to see more of these types of little “sending out” ceremonies in churches. I can see so many potential benefits!
A “sending out” ceremony announces a believer’s call and purpose to the church. This could help to inspire intercessors to support the believer in prayer. Other believers might be inspired to partner with the believer or to learn from his example. A “sending out” ceremony might also inspire more believers to seek out and discover God’s purposes for their own lives!
And if these ceremonies happened often enough, they could help shift the focus of leadership from pulling people in to serve the organization to sending people out to fulfill even greater destinies in God!
“For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord [in prayer] will be saved.’
“But how will people call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher (messenger)? And how will they preach unless they are commissioned and sent [for that purpose]? Just as it is written and forever remains written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!’”— Romans 10:13-15 (AMP)
