Sunday, April 8, 2007

A Hostile Takeover

A Hostile Takeover: a generally reviled tactic in the business world of taking control of a company for personal advantage and divesting its assets without regard for that companies management, board of directors, shareholders, or workers.


Unfortunately, the Hostile Takeover has a counterpart in the evangelical world. Consider how Rick Warren has disenfranchised those who have labored a lifetime in their local assemblies:


Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you're choosing who leaves. You say, "But Rick, yes, they're the pillars of the church." Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up ... And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions.


Rick, through his books, conferences, and simulcasts, has encouraged churches around the world to trash the gospel once delivered for his new improved version or as he calls it “vision.” And for those of us who oppose this gospel alien to His Word, he has a solution: make the place where we once worshipped our risen Lord so abominable that the Spirit within us will demand we leave.


A Rick Warren Takeover: what used to be a reviled tactic in the evangelical world of taking control of a local assembly for personal advantage and divesting its assets without regard for that church’s Lord, board of elders, shareholders in His Holiness, or fellow workers in the Truth.


Why does the world recognizes a “hostile takeover” when they see it, but so many who call themselves “Christian” do not?


…for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light (Luke 16:8).

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Saddleback Mountain

Some time ago a godly pastor was beset by his flock regarding what is best described as mass neo-evangelical hysteria.

He traveled to Saddleback Mountain to determine the truth. I remember nothing of the doctrinal issues he later discussed but I will never forget the word picture he painted.

As the service was concluding, he and his wife left the auditorium and stationed themselves outside. And as the vast assembly of Warrenites and their leaders emerged from the Saddleback complex, they counted bibles… a total of three bibles.

Saturday, March 3, 2007

The Pied Piper of Purpose

Pastor,

You recently asked what was happening with us. I told you of His blessing, but not the rest....

A number of months ago a church, historically stalwart in the faith, we were visiting, suddenly mandated that Sunday classes were to be suspended for forty days. During that time everyone was to participate in the study of a popular “purpose driven” paperback. Rather than gathering together to study the Word, that we might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, our challenge was to affirm a book by a mere man.

A few months ago another church, historically stalwart in the faith, we were visiting, suddenly mandated that Sunday classes were to be suspended for forty days. During that time everyone was to participate in the study of a popular “purpose driven” paperback. Rather than learning together from the Word, that we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, our challenge was to affirm a book by a mere man and a rather....

These churches, each having heard the sirens’ call, marched in lockstep with a thousand other churches as the self proclaimed Pied Piper of Purpose lead them to a tranquil oblivion. “Purposefully” doing the “spiritually correct” thing each opted for an unholy aberration of His Word and the inevitable accompaniment: spiritual confusion. They failed to discern between two mutually exclusive ways of “doing church” His Way or man’s. And they are not alone. The pastor of Saddleback, Inc. has convinced multitudes that his “way” is more contemporary, more savvy, more pragmatic, more loving, and of course, more popular than the other Way. The author of “purpose” has persuaded many that he has discovered mysteries that even the Author and Finisher of our faith neglected to reveal. These two churches have apparently forgotten Judges, the book of spiritual confusion that sadly concludes: “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Tell me pastor, what is your church doing this fall....