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Table of Contents
Interview with John Lindell
Pentecostal Priorities — the Key to a Vibrant, Growing Church
The story of how one church grew from 42 people in 1991, meeting in a Christian bookstore, to over 4,200 in 2001, meeting in a multimillion dollar complex, is nothing short of a miracle. This church’s short history serves as a powerful reminder that God can and does break through into our cradle of humanity to perform the miraculous—a sovereign demonstration of His greatness. Though this interview is not a storyline of how the church went from infancy to adulthood, it does reflect on some of the Pentecostal priorities that helped make James River Assembly of God the fastest growing church in the Assemblies of God between 1991–2000. General Superintendent Thomas E. Trask visited with John Lindell, senior pastor of James River Assembly, in Springfield, Missouri, to discuss these priorities and why they are central to the church’s Pentecostal mission.
TO WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THE GROWTH OF JAMES RIVER ASSEMBLY OF GOD?
LINDELL: I attribute the growth at James River Assembly to a sovereign move of God. In addition, the people have given themselves to some basic principles. They have a heart for the lost and have given themselves to serving rather than being spectators. Evangelism has always been the centerpiece of the church’s life and ministry.
PEOPLE FOLLOW A LEADER. WHAT HAS BEEN IN YOUR HEART AS YOU HAVE WITESSED THIS EXTRAORDINARY GROWTH OF THE CHURCH?
LINDELL: People ask me if I have a vision for the church, and I tell them I am not a real visionary. But 10 years from now I want this church to be inch for inch, ounce for ounce, as solid a church in conforming to the principles we see modeled in the New Testament Church.
WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF BASING ONE’S STYLE OF MINISTRY ON THE BIBLICAL MODEL?
LINDELL: There are many ideas today on how to do church. If a pastor tries to copy different ministry models, but these models don’t fit his church’s personality, the people become confused. If, however, a pastor bases his model on the Bible, then he teaches people the authority of Scripture. A pastor has increased his own authority in leading them because he can say, "This is not my idea; this is the Bible’s." There are many benefits to a biblically based ministry that focuses on fundamentals.
YOU MAINTAIN A STRONG TRADITION FOR THE SUNDAY NIGHT SERVICE. WHY?
LINDELL: Many of our churches have moved into specialized ministries on Sunday. The adults are in one area of the building for Sunday school while the children are in another. In the process, we have split up the family during Sunday services. While God is touching children through the children’s ministries, they still need time with adults. We decided we would lose the heritage of the church if we didn’t have our children participating with adults. When everybody is experiencing the same thing, sensing the move of the Spirit, heritage is transmitted. This is why we make the Sunday evening service important at James River. It is the one service of the week when our families can worship together.
Another reason the Sunday night meeting is important is that it provides people opportunity to spend time around the altar where the Spirit of God can meet them at their point of need.
If I didn’t teach the people to boldly approach the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace to help them in time of need, then what have I taught them?—Lindell
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HOW DO YOU PLAN FOR THE SUNDAY NIGHT SERVICE?
LINDELL: I put every effort into making the evening service important. I have found that what is important to me as the pastor is important to the church. We have a full choir and orchestra that commit to being there every Sunday night. That is a huge commitment on their part. I’m thankful that I have a music pastor and choir who are willing to do that. I also give priority to the message. I don’t want to preach old material on Sunday night.
YOUR PREACHING HAS BECOME A HALLMARK OF YOUR MINISTRY. HOW DO YOU STAY FRESH WITH YOUR PREACHING?
LINDELL: I like to read and study. Commentator Adam Clark said, "You need to study yourself to death and put yourself back to life again." This is the calling of the pastor in a New Testament sense. The apostles said, "But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word" (Acts 6:4). It is not right for pastors to neglect these things. Pastors must decide what their priorities are going to be. I’ve decided to focus on prayer, the Word, and leadership development.
From the time the church was small, I’ve operated on what I call planned neglect. I plan to neglect everything until my message is ready. I study Tuesday morning, all day Wednesday, Friday morning, and Saturday until I’m done, which is usually early afternoon. I spend approximately 8 to 10 hours in sermon preparation during the week. If it’s a difficult subject, it can take up to 18 hours. The priority of my week is making sure I have adequate study time. If I’m not prepared, people feel they are getting leftovers, and they will feel the Sunday services aren’t important.
ANOTHER STRONG TRADITION OF YOUR CHURCH IS ITS MIDWEEK PRAYER MEETING. WHAT BROUGHT THAT ABOUT?
LINDELL: At an Assemblies of God Theological Seminary conference, a speaker said, "People talk about prayer in the school, but we don’t have prayer in the church. Have prayer in the church, then we’ll talk about the other." I left convicted. James River is a good church with a lot of good things happening, but I wasn’t teaching the people to pray. Spurgeon said, "If God be near a church, it cannot help but pray. One of the first signs that God is not near a church is a slothfulness in prayer."
Frankly, I didn’t know how to conduct a prayer meeting. I asked the Lord to show me what we could do. I concluded that if the church is going to pray, it would have to be at a time when the church meets, because people are busy. We tried to start an early morning prayer meeting, but people didn’t come.
On Wednesday nights we were running over 400 in the sanctuary, and the Lord was blessing. I asked the leadership of the church what they thought about having a prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. They said, "The people love you, John, and they’ll follow you. But in 6 months you will cut your attendance in half. You need to understand your strengths. God is blessing what you are doing on Wednesday nights. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it."
But I couldn’t get away from the fact we were not praying. If I didn’t teach the people to boldly approach the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace to help them in time of need, then what have I taught them?
I came to a place where I said to the leadership, "I know what’s best for the church."
At James River, I’ve tried to say, "Lord, whatever You tell me to do, I will obey." I felt I would be disobedient if we didn’t have prayer on Wednesday night.
DESCRIBE WHAT WAS IN YOUR HEART AND WHAT YOU LEARNED AS YOU LEAD THE CHURCH IN THIS PRAYER EMPHASIS.
LINDELL: Pastor Cho says the pastor has to lead the prayer meeting. I said, "God, You have to lead the prayer meeting." I’m from a Presbyterian background that likes a plan. To think that I would go in and just see what God would do was stretching me. To be completely honest with you, I was scared to death the first year.
During that first year, I rented a hotel room where I fasted and prayed all day. I said, "Lord, if You don’t show up, I don’t have anything, and it will get old in a hurry. But if You are walking the aisles of the sanctuary, then people will never get tired of that. Only You can transform people."
In our prayer meetings there were times when it felt we were rolling along on square wheels trying to get the thing moving. I would go home at times discouraged because of a lack of intensity on a given night or because it felt like the Spirit wasn’t moving.
Other times the prayer meetings were glorious. The people come into the sanctuary at the end of a busy day and experience the Lord’s presence. They realize that God is giving us a taste of what the prayer meeting can become. There is a strengthening that comes into their lives after spending time in God’s presence. I wake up the next morning feeling refreshed with a power in my life that has come from the prayer meeting. God does things in my heart through the corporate prayer meeting that renew me in a way that nothing else can.
I have learned that leading people to wait on the Lord and have an encounter with Him takes time. We are asking people to spend 1 1/2 hours in prayer on Wednesday night when the average preacher spends 15 minutes a day in prayer. Prayer is a discipline that must be taught and that takes time.
Those who doubt or downplay the validity of the altar make me wonder whether they remember the experiences they have had at the altar.—Lindell
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I have also come to understand that the prayer meeting is like a baby who becomes a toddler, then a preschooler, then an elementary child. We are in the preschool stage of prayer. A day will come when we will be fully developed.
We have had this prayer meeting for the last 3 years of our church’s 10-year existence. What has surprised me most through all of this is the attendance has increased not decreased. The motivation for our prayer meeting has never been for what would take place this week or this year at James River. Now 6 years later and with over 300 prayer meetings, I believe God is saying: Those people at James River Assembly have been there when it was hot and cold, and they’ve been there when they didn’t want to. They have waited on Me and called on Me. I will meet them.
WHAT IS THE FORMAT FOR YOUR PRAYER MEETING?
LINDELL: We typically have a worship time, helping people focus their minds on God. We pass out prayer cards as people come in. Everyone who has a need fills out a prayer card, and we pray for these needs for a month.
Any preparation I do for the service is in prayer. I allow the Lord to lay on my heart what He wants to say through me. I give a brief devotional. It generally moves people toward some area of what the Lord wants to do that night. There might be a need or some tragedy or emergency for which we ask the people to pray. We may pray for one another, but we always have a time where the people can seek the Lord on their own, at their seats or around the altar. We also pray for our city, state, and government leaders.
In December, the focus of our prayer time is very specific. We pray for the many outreaches the church organizes in the community as well as for the salvation of the large number of guests who will visit the church during the month. Last year we had more people saved in December in our Sunday morning services than any other month.
Something else I do is to recap my Sunday morning message. For example, right now I’m preaching through the Book of Acts. We have hundreds of people who need the infilling of the Holy Spirit. I get excited thinking about hundreds of people receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit and what that would do in Southwest Missouri.
WHY IS THE ALTAR IMPORTANT IN YOUR CHURCH?
LINDELL: Having been raised Presbyterian, I came into the Assemblies of God with several questions. Through searching the Scriptures, and the work of the Spirit in my heart, I’ve seen the validity in things that some people believe are outdated—such as the altar. Something special happens in a person’s life at the altar. They are taking a step of faith saying, "God, I believe You to be the answer, and I’m going to step out in faith believing You’re going to meet me." That is the beginning of the work of God in anybody’s life. My workload as a pastor decreases when I invite people to the altar. Only the Holy Spirit can unscramble the mess in people’s lives.
Those who doubt or downplay the validity of the altar make me wonder whether they remember the experiences they have had at the altar. There have been times when I was facing tough issues that I stood at the altar and the Lord changed me. The next day I felt confident that God met me and gave me strength.
I use the altar every Sunday morning to call people to a public confession of faith in Christ. Prayer counselors join those coming forward—this establishes an important bond at the very beginning of the process. They are led to a prayer room just off of the sanctuary where their commitment to Christ is made. We ask every new convert to sign a decision card; we want them to understand the seriousness of the decision they have made. We explain the importance of obedience to Christ and that the first step in obedience is to be baptized in water. If we let people feel comfortable with not being baptized, then we have taught them to be comfortable with not being obedient to Christ. We baptize people every Sunday night.
DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER ADVICE FOR PASTORS?
LINDELL: One concern I have in the Pentecostal church is that many of our younger generation view Pentecostal practices such as the altar, praying out loud, and the baptism in the Holy Spirit as outdated and just a part of Pentecostal culture. I feel sorry for pastors who haven’t settled their convictions regarding the fundamentals or the basics of Pentecostal ministry.
I had to settle the issue of praying out loud. I read my Bible to see what it said. In Psalms, praying out loud is mentioned quite often. I read the Old Testament and noticed the times men like Moses, who knew the will of God, still cried out to the Lord. Praying out loud has been the pattern of God’s people from Genesis to Revelation—men and women calling on the Lord.
It is my prayer that the Lord will give Pentecostal leaders a fresh baptism in the Holy Spirit, and that we who traffic in Pentecostal truth will not become so familiar with it that we forget its power to transform our lives and ministries.
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