Highways And Hedges

Highways & Hedges Ministry Mission Statement

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Highways and Hedges Ministry Mission Statement

The mission for Highways and Hedges Ministry is the same as for every Christian and Christian ministry. It is to glorify God through the changed life and to be the light in a dark world.
What is the changed life? It is not becoming a believer and “doing good” for God. If we believe that we can do anything for God or clean up ourselves by doing good, then we have missed a crucial point in spiritual development. What we have missed is the changed life. What does this mean? God puts us through the process from being controlled by self or flesh to being controlled by the Spirit. This is no small thing. The flesh dies a very hard death and fights a ferocious battle to maintain itself. This often carries over into our walk with God and any ministry efforts that we take up. We still have this deep-seated notion that we are the power source for our sanctification or spiritual development and we are going to do great things for God. God does not need anything from us. He is omnipotent and can do or create anything he wants. All we can be is what he brings to us through His Spirit.
What blocks this process is the flesh within us that wants to be in control of the process. What is God’s ultimate purpose for each of us? It is clearly stated in Romans 8:29. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Clearly, he wants us to take on the image of Christ so that we can be the light in a dark world. John 15 says “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit; he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful. He goes on to say that no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
How does God get us to this usable place? Generally by allowing us to go through trials and suffering. This is necessary because the Self in us cannot kill itself. 2 Corinthians 4:11 says “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.” John 12:24 says “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” It is only after we have gone through this crucifixion of the flesh that we can ever be of any use to God. Until then we will be relying on our own understanding and abilities to accomplish God’s purposes. This will be very puny by comparison.
How will we know if we are taking on this changed life? The answer is very easy. When the Self or Flesh stops getting in God’s way, The Holy Spirit is then free to work in and through us. The fruits of the Spirit will begin to emerge in us. Galatians 5:22 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
The other way to determine this is to look to the example of Jesus. His most conspicuous characteristic was love. He did not sequester himself in the Temple and talk about high spiritual concepts and celebrate being a believer with the other believers. He went where the people were and loved them. No one was too low or insignificant for him. He didn’t wait for the unbelievers to come to the gathering of believers; He went to where they were and showed them who he was. Many of those people were unlovable. That didn’t matter to Him. Consequently, he was irresistible to them. He won many of them over this way.
This is God’s purpose for all of us as believers. Highways and Hedges Ministry is just one branch of that vine that John 15 talks about. It is the mission of the ministry to go into the world (highways and hedges) and demonstrate the love of Christ to those who are still living in the darkness. Each believer is to be surrendered to and led by the Holy Spirit. We do not presume to tell anyone what God’s will is for them. They are to seek that guidance from the Holy Spirit. We will be united in taking the light to the secular biker world and anywhere else he leads us, but how that is to happen is up to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Men cannot presume to perform that role. We may do many things as a group, but ministry is also individual by the leading of the Spirit.
As to organizational matters, Highways and Hedges will be organized in the same fashion that God intended for the Israelites. He knew that men were too fallible to have the ability to be solely responsible for the well-being of the Israelites or any other group. Consequently, His will for them was to set up a system of Judges or counselors to take the word of God and settle disputes or problems in the tribes so that the people would function better as individuals without having someone to tell them what to do. This way they would grow as believers and become what God intended for them to be as individuals. Highways and Hedges is not structured so that people have power over other people. It is set up to help all of its members reach their full potential as individual believers and to accomplish God’s mission for us of being the light in a dark world. We are to help each other reach this goal and to become what God intended for us as individual believers and as a Ministry.