Upscale: The raising of a measuring standard determining affluency, social status, etc.

Downsize: Reduction of operations implemented to "increase efficency".

In today's Christianity, there is a disturbing trend to re-interpret the Scriptures to make the scriptures fit our own ideas and concepts. For example, there are some today who state that if you are poor, then you are cursed. If you are rich, then you are annointed. To propogate this teaching some have tried their best to justify that all are to be millionaires by twisting the scriptures to portray Jesus as a millionaire and since we are to imitate of Christ, we are to be millionaires also. Some teach today that Jesus' clothes were the "Armini" clothes of it's day. Some teach that Jesus was rich because he had a treasurer (Judas Iscariot). I personally know of many poor, high impact churches and ministries today that have treasurers overseeing the finances. In fact, if you were to look at the scriptures in John 12:6, it states that Judas was a "thief, as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it". Therefore, the twelve disciples were not millionaires. Judas might have been, but surely not Jesus and the other eleven disciples. If Jesus was a millionaire, he could have easily fed the multitude instead of lifting up to God loaves of bread and fishes and asking for the blessing and provision.

If we now look at Matthew 10, Jesus prepares the twelve apostles with instructions and warnings about what to do, where to go, and how to act. He even tells them specifically in verses 9-10 not to take extra money, clothes, shoes, and a staff "for the worker is worth his keep". Jesus even tells the disciples in verses 11-14 what to do if the town receives or rejects them. You see, Jesus wanted to teach them faith while at the same time, test their faith. Along with the teaching and testing of faith, God wanted to show the provision given to those who kept the commandments and obeyed the scriptures. It was Jesus who said on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:19-34 for the disciples to not worry about food, drink, treasures, and clothes. In fact, Jesus told the disciples "Where their treasure is, there is your heart". For if our Heavenly Father feeds the birds and gives the grass it's green splendor, how much more important are you. Therefore, God will provide. God did provide through the miracles throughout the Gospels and the people who received the disciples provided for them also. Faith is spelled "R-I-S-K". These twelve disciples left everything they owned along with their successful careers (tax collector, physician, carpenter, fishermen, tent makers, etc) in Faith to follow Jesus while reaping the Godly reward and provision at a great cost of persecution, imprisonment, and some lost their lives for the sake of the Gospel.

The second and most important reason why Jesus told them to go out with literally nothing is to keep their focus on the goal of reaching the lost sheep. If they carried the "extra baggage" along with them, then their focus would have not been placed on reaching the lost. Instead their focus would have been bogged down and their time to minister would have been cut having to worry how to get the extra clothes from point A to point B, how much money was in their pockets, etc. The distractions could have easily defeated their purpose. There are some today who chase renewals and spiritual gifts to the point to where the focus is not about kingdom principles, but on the gifts. People want to be slain in the spirit, people want to receive gold in their teeth, people want every thing God says that he will give. The problem is not in the clothes, money, blessing, gold itself. The problem is when the gifts become the god instead of the true giver of the gifts (Jesus). The scriptures say "The love of money is the root of all evil". It does not say "Money is the root of all evil" nor "The lack of money is the root of all evil". It is the desire of Jesus to meet and care for all of our needs while at the same time make the provisions and blessings to the point that the maintenance, upkeep, and showmanship of the blessing and provisions do not bog us down and prevent us from doing his will.

Unfortunately, this extreme has happened. We have let the gift become the God instead of Jesus, the giver of the gift. Some today are still caught up in the blessings received years ago. I remember growing up in Pentecostal circles how I would hear during testimony times the old saints get up and testify of what "God did in 1932". I have always wanted to stand up and ask "What has God done for you since 1932?". In many situations, the answer is already answered by hearing the words in their testimony. The answer being "not much of nothing". That saint of God is so consumed about the blessing received in 1932 to the point where God wants to pour out his blessings again and that precious saint of God rejects it because it was different from the way it was received in 1932 and in their mentality "it's not of God". Some are consumed that the gift of yesterday is now worthless by today's worldy standards. Therefore, it is God's automatic mandate to give them a gift that is bigger and better. In other words, they say to themselves and to God "God, the five year old Chevrolet is no longer good enough because now I am being seen as a failure and cursed, therefore to be viewed as a successful and blessed Christian I need the new Lexus, and I need it NOW and hand delivered to my door at no cost."

In the article entitled Power and Glory, or Numbers and Money, I discussed how churches try to copy the methods of the "megachurches" to become the next megachurch by re-engineering their concepts to fit their environments and forcing their theories to work even if it was not God's will. We feel that becoming megachurch is the bar of success instead of the benchmark of Scriptures. We show everyone the "pretty" side and the greener pasture of the Ministry. We have outreach but we do not talk about them unless we can bring them up in conversations to make a ministry look good and become upscaled to become a member of the "Big Boys Club". We never interview people who have seen the rocky road, but interview the successful businessmen. The cameras are directed to the affluent in the front of the pew instead of the shamed in the back of the pew. Questions and problems are never aired on TV because it makes us look bad. How many church splits have you seen televised on TV? NONE. We edit and cut out what we see as flaws. If worship is being performed, we show the official church "dancers" in their Hebrew costumes and their flags but purposely aim the camera away from the one that may be dancing in a frenzy or the one who uncontrollably cries while lying prostrate on the floor in true repentance. In the megachurch TV mentality, these actions and others "drive" people away from Christianity (or does it drive potential dollars away). Folks, outreach ministries are not clean, they are messy. You can not clean fish until you catch fish. There is nothing that looks "pretty" about showing an outreach of a church on TV in the slums ministering to a prostitute infected with HIV high on crack with the needles still in her veins or a homeless couple living in an alley because they lost their life savings. There is nothing "exciting" about hearing a testimony of a normal middle class family coming clean and testifying about their struggles to keep a family intact when the stresses of marriage takes it's toll, the man confesses to battering his wife, committing adultery and fathering a child out of wedlock, the wife confeses to spending their entire paycheck playing bingo to get more money and the kids are in rebellion against the Christian values now discovered and what God did to turn the tide of destruction around. There is nothing "successful" about interviewing a single mom who got pregnant at fifteen, quit school to get a job, and see the irresponsible father leave the scene explain how God helps her out everyday while her child is at public school and she works at the local Wal-Mart just to make ends meet and not to have to go on public assistance programs. There is nothing "spectacular" about seeing a demon possessed man being set free and seeing the gyrations, etc that manifests. There is nothing "earthshattering" about a man who was a victim of evil in Corporate America overcoming to survive excedding and abundantly beyond that trial. Instead, we love to hear stories from silver spooned millionaires who made it big, we hear stories from people raised in Christian homes so sheltered from the real world that nobody knows what they are talking about as they speak in the "Christianese" language instead of the normal everyday English heard everyday, we hear the latest testimony from a professional actor or a professional athelete using their name to attract the masses, we hear about how someone is out to "obey God's will" by eliminating the Democrats instead of fighting the spiritual war against wickedness in high places, or the story always aired during the anniversary of Roe vs Wade about a girl who saved her baby from abortion. But in God's eyes, if we have ministered to the least of these, we have ministered to him.

Click Here for part two of Upscaling Ministry, Downsizing Ministries