What would you think if you went to a physician and he purposely make things up as he went along in regards to your medical treatment? He called himself a Board Certified Purpose Driven specialist. Whatever he think works is the best treatment.

What if you took a formal English course because it was a required course for your advancement and the professor taught you ghetto slang instead? He said you need to be able to be able to communicate with the underclass.

What if you were blind and the word scanner paraphrased the words out of your calculus text book because the program designer believed that truth is relative?

What if you go to Bible college to learn the Bible and they teach you how to do everything but learn proper biblical exegesis. Guess what, the latter is happening all over this country.

Christian Worldview Network - Brannon Howse - Pastoral Malpractice and the Visible Church

Suppose you were to contract a potentially serious medical condition and went to see a doctor. Upon asking him details about the diagnosis and medical consequences you found out that he does not take medical literature literally. In addition, he has not kept up on the latest medical research and has been out of medical school for several decades. He prefers to make his patients happy and comfortable rather than to force them to confront the truth about their health condition. Would you see such a doctor? Neither would I. Such a doctor eventually could be found guilty of malpractice.

I have assumed in Warren’s case that he indeed has the tools to perform sound exegesis. Some of the other leaders of large congregations—Bill Hybels, Robert Schuller, or Joel Osteen—likely are capable of doing sound Biblical exegesis and correctly applying the Bible to the lives of those who attend their churches. But sadly they often do not use sound exegesis—or even use the Bible as the main source of their messages.

Pastor Warren may be correct that you cannot do both—expound important Biblical topics and appear attractive to seekers at the same time. But I disagree completely with the idea that we must appear attractive to lost sinners. We need to preach Christ to lost sinners so that they can know the terms of the gospel. That is the only valid “diagnosis” that will do them any good. In the book of Acts this was done up front, and not through a back door after presenting an alternative that would seem attractive to people in their lost state.

The Bible does not give pastors the liberty to handle the Bible in a sloppy manner.

The issue of motivation to develop the skills and use the tools to perform Biblical exegesis also has reached seminaries. Because of a growing lethargy concerning Biblical interpretation and sound doctrine, many have turned to such sidetracks as “marriage and family therapy” or deceptive mysticism such as “spiritual formation.” Young people from around the country have written us stating that they want to go into the ministry but cannot find a school where they can gain a solid theological education without being subjected to postmodernism, mysticism, the therapeutic gospel, or church growth theory. If many churches are not looking for those who “labor in word and doctrine,” seminaries have little market to train people to do just that. So we find ourselves in the lamentable situation where young people who want to be godly pastors trained with the tools to accurately handle the Bible have difficulty finding a place to be educated, and those who actually do find such an education have difficulty finding churches that want them. As a result, our evangelical movement has grown accustomed to pastoral malpractice as though it were the norm.

The standards are strict and generally well observed for those who treat our bodies and cure our physical ailments. But the standards for those who care for our souls have fallen woefully short.

Full article

According to Julia Duin evangelicals are fleeing their churches and not attending on Sunday. There are probably several things going on here besides Duin not counting some non denominational churches that are growing. Has anyone considered that maybe half of the people in the seeker friendly churches that are now so prominent across America were never Christians in the first place? They were brought in by hype and great expectation for a purpose driven life but they never believed or were given the gospel of Salvation that defines a Christian.

Let me make a few observations. I occasionally attended a large mega church in St Louis and the pastor realized that even through he was having alter calls and scores of people were emotionally coming to the alter each Sunday for salvation or renewal the church was no longer growing. He realized the people were going out the back door as fast as they went in the front door. He soon changed to follow the format of Willow Creek Church and adopted the seeker sensitive church growth model. He no longer gave alter calls and did not present a dynamic gospel message on Sundays but mainly presented an entertainment packed gospel light service that would appeal to young professionals. Now almost two decades later the Church still has about the same attendance numbers as it had before he switched to the Creeker format but the people in attendance today are almost a completely different membership. In others words in 15 or so years there has been a ninety percent turnover in the membership. He replaced a church of fervent believers with all Baby Boomer Evangelicals and seekers.

This has been going on in many seeker sensitive churches across the country. They cater to the unbelievers and lose their core Church membership. They pad their church board with those who will agree with the pastor’s seeker model and drive out the leadership that wish to retain biblical teaching on Sunday. In addition, the seekers are not going to the mid week services to learn the gospel of salvation like the leadership had hoped. So the seekers stick around for a little while and also leave out the back door seldom to be seen again

Even Bill Hybells the father of the Creeker Movement of churches has recently admitted that the seeker sensitive church growth model has been a failure. He said it did not produce mature Christians. He and others are now rethinking everything and probably looking for a new gimmick to bring people in and keep them in attendance. The whole Emergent Church movement is doing likewise.

The problem is that the Body of Christ is not grown through gimmicks and entertainment services. It is grown through conversion to Jesus Christ through hearing and believing the gospel and this does not happen unless the gospel is given and the Holy Spirit draws them (not Elvis impersonators). Gimmicks of the church might get people to attend on Sundays for awhile but that wears off and most soon leave.

Also, the local church spiritual health is not based on numbers. It is based on Spirit indwelt Christians with gifts of the Spirit that are using these gifts for the good of the whole Body. The Body does not even have to be in Sunday attendance for that to happen. The Church needs to work beyond the four walls that many assembly in on Sunday. Much too often those who do attend each Sunday think that have done their Christian service and their calling because they attended the Sunday gathering service. No. They have just attended a Sunday gathering service. If you want to do what Christians were called to do you need to be helping to fulfill the great commission using your gifts to build up the Body of Christ in order for the Body of Christ (the Church) to actually fulfill the great commission. Grow the membership in the Body of Christ and the Church will be attending and it will be doing its job. This does not happen just on Sunday but every day of the week and that job will never primarily be done under the roofs of church building.

The buildings are primarily there for the use of the Church not for the use of unbelievers. I have encountered many Bible believing Christians that will not attend a Church building because of what they feel goes on under these roofs and we all know that their arguments are often valid. So the solution might be for pastors to start looking more at third world models where the Church is actually living out Christianity daily rather than the latest Madison Ave westernized two hour Sunday media event model.

I believe if all the big Church buildings in America disappeared the Church in America would be much more effective and dynamic being a Church that goes out into the streets.

Sunday Morning, Staying Home

According to Julia Duin, a religion reporter for the Washington Times, more and more evangelicals are in fact fleeing their churches. Indeed, Ms. Duin regards church-quitting, at least among evangelicals, as nothing less than an epidemic. The problem, in her view, is not in the souls of the church quitters but in the character of the churches they choose to leave. “Something,” she observes, “is not right with . . . evangelical church life.”

The faults she points to–relying on her own reporting and survey data–are many. They are surprising, too, running counter to the stereotype of evangelicals bonding happily in their churches. She reports, among other things: a lack of a feeling of community among church members, inducing loneliness and boredom; church teaching that fails to go beyond the basics of the faith or to reach members grappling with suffering or unanswered prayer; pastors who are either out of touch with their parishioners or themselves unhappy, or who fail to shepherd their flocks, or who are caught up in scandal, or who try to control the lives of church members in a high-handed way. She claims that many churches have “inefficient leadership models” and that many, preoccupied with the care of families, neglect single people.

According to Ms. Duin, churches dedicated to making disciples will “do well in this era of dumbed-down, purpose-driven, seeker-friendly Christianity.” But is that really true? From a theological perspective, there is no guarantee that churches will prosper as they attempt to make disciples–if we judge prosperity by church membership alone. A church might conscientiously carry out its biblical tasks and yet, by measures of popularity, do poorly in this world. Such a church would not be doing right if it adjusted its mission for the sake of higher attendance records.

Full article

This article is a must read for all Christians. Are Christians going to allow the government to continue to indoctrinate their children and then wonder why none of them are coming to Christ?

Over half the Southern Baptists churches have not baptized one youth because the gospel is not being taught to them in church or at home and parents have almost totally lost control of their kids.

There is a Southern Baptist Convention this coming week and a resolution that will deal with this issue. Will the SBC actually take some strong action? My view is that they will not because most of the church in America has already lost its savor or they would not be electing amoral candidates to high office who promote this amorality. I hope the Baptists prove me wrong!

Warning to Baptists: Turn or burn

The largest Protestant denomination in America, the Southern Baptists, is sending representatives from thousands of churches to convene in Indianapolis for the 151st session of the Southern Baptist Convention on June 10 and 11. The church is in crisis. Outgoing president Rev. Frank Page estimates that only half of Southern Baptist churches will still exist two decades from now.

The decline appears to be particularly acute among young people in the church. In 2005 alone, 55 percent of Southern Baptist churches baptized no youths, according to Ed Stetzer with the North American Mission Board.

Rick Hughes, Baptist State Convention of North Carolina senior consultant for discipleship, states, “We must face the fact that much of the American church is declining for a very biblical reason: We have failed to be and make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

That lack of meaningful evangelism starts in the home. Christians are doing a poor job of discipling their own children. Eight-five percent of their public schooled children abandon the faith by the time they leave for college, while only 2 percent of their homeschooled students leave. A pro-homosexual author stated, “Whoever captures the kids owns the future.” And he wasn’t kidding. Whoever owns the children owns the future of neighborhoods, cities, states, nations and, yes, our churches.

The church attrition rate is not surprising. Public school children receive almost 11,000 hours of secular indoctrination from kindergarten through their senior year compared with only 264 hours spent in meaningful conversation with their parents within the same 12-year period. And while Southern Baptists have hired more youth group leaders than ever before in past decades, the number of youth being baptized has fallen dramatically.

So far, the majority of Southern Baptists have refused to acknowledge that their children are being soul murdered in the public schools. Parents scratch their heads dumbfounded as to why their children are abandoning the church in droves, and yet the answer is obvious.

What is God’s bidding? Is it for Christians to leave their children in schools where their innocence is shattered to bits? Where they are encouraged to choose their own perverted sex variant?

According to Baucham and Shortt, there is a solution that could result in explosive growth for the church while extending missions into communities nationwide. Implementing it would require the church to inform parents about what is happening in their children’s schools and offer a way out – an exodus. And the time is right. As the resolution states, “This may be the most significant opportunity for evangelism that we have ever seen” as flocks of unbelievers searching for a better education system come to our door.

Is the Southern Baptist Church serious about genuine spiritual growth? Is it truly concerned about outreach to children “captured” by deviants working through the government school system?

This year’s convention will tell.

Whoever owns the hearts and minds of our children owns the future.

This article give some interesting insights. Rich Warren is apparently inviting certain critics to visit his purpose driven conferences probably in an attempt to tone down the criticism of him. He may also be genuinely trying to understand why he has critics in the Church (let’s hope so).

Bob DeWaay was invited and he challenged Rick Warren to preach Christ. By that, he meant that Warren should preach specific scriptural Revelation about Jesus Christ in public rather than just General revelation about God. I hope Rick Warren takes Bob’s advise and uses his huge platform to preach the gospel of salvation.

One of the perplexing things is that Warren’s Church really does have orthodox theology but that does not help those who listen to Warren and do not attend the biblical programs at Saddleback. When Warren has been before a world audience in the past his message has been too wishing washy. His public messages and his interviews are generally absent of the gospel.

I think one thing that Warren needs to understand is that millions read his works and follow his words. They do not go to Saddleback Church classes to find the Orthodoxy they retain. So Warren with his huge world exposure needs to put more salt and light in His message to those outside of his Church no matter the cost to his worldly popularity.

Of course there are other problems in his programs but clearly preaching the absolute truths of the gospel to the world would be a huge step forward for Rick Warren. If he really wants to unite the Church and not further divide it he will preach the gospel clearly and not cloak it behind subjective self improvement philosophies

When Billy Graham preached to the world their was no doubt that he was preaching the gospel of salvation. People with ears to hear listened and many found Christ. Rick Warren has much the same potential to reach millions in this world. If he continues with has mainly social gospel message he might even make the world a better place for awhile but if it offers no salvation message what does it profit people if they gain a better world for a season but still lose their own soul?

My Visit to Ask Rick Warren to Preach Christ - CWN

My Visit to Ask Rick Warren to Preach Christ

By Bob DeWaay

In May, one of the pastors at Saddleback Church invited me to attend a Purpose Driven conference—at Saddleback’s expense. Their only caveat was that I say nothing until the end, at which time I would be able to comment about why I disagree with the Purpose Driven movement. I declined on the grounds that I had already studied the movement and had no need to hear more from its proponents. When I saw the lineup of speakers I realized that it would have been exasperating to listen for hours to what I have already rejected. Rick Warren’s chief of staff e-mailed back and offered to have me come only on Thursday in order to talk to Warren in person. Since the Bible says that we should be ready to give a reason for our hope in the gospel (1Peter 3:15) I decided to go.

What a totally bazaar concept “lost Christians”? This is an oxymoron!  If these “Christians” have lost their faith in the Bible, the church and Christian beliefs then they are not “lost Christians” they are not Christians!

Thirty-one million people have left these churches because they were never believers they were just cultural Christians. It is happening in the U.S., Canada and Europe because many of the mainline churches in the West do not teach or practice biblical Christianity. All they have is denominational rituals. They baptize people into the church as babies and then they call them Christians. Then when they grow up and leave they say they are “lost Christians. It is nonsense, they were never Christians at all.

What is happening is that once these social Christians no longer feel social pressures from parents or spouses to stay they leave. Others leave when they lose faith in their warped concept of the Church, the Bible or God. The reason they leave Christianity is because they never had Christian faith in the first place. The reason why they leave your church might be because they never received salvation there.

There are no “lost Christians” Millions of people are leaving their churches because they never entered the one true spiritual Church in the first place - the body of Christ. If you church leaders really want to do something about it preach the gospel of salvation to your own congregations and preach them the whole counsel of God and start to practice biblical Christianity instead of just giving your congregation some psychology lesson or feel good message during a Sunday ritual service.

Dave Samford obvious does not even know what a true Christian is. His term seems to be anyone who even attended a Christian church. He then suggests they we bring those that leave back into this strange concept of Christian faith by fixing their hurt feelings and doubts about God. No, these people only will come to Christ when you give them the true Gospel of salvation and for the first time in their lives they actually believe it.

‘Lost’ Christians Greatest Crisis in American Church, says Author | Christianpost.com

PORTLAND, Ore. - The inability of the church to discuss a topic that has become taboo among many Christians is one of the root causes why millions of Americans are leaving the church and never to return, says one author.

There are “Christians who have experientially lost their faith” but have no one to turn to since church culture shuns the topic, Dave Samford said Thursday.

It’s not that these Christians lost their salvation, but that they have lost their faith in the Bible, the church and Christian beliefs, said the author, who was addressing attendants at the annual convention of the Evangelical Press Association in Portland, Ore.

Over 31 million Americans are part of this exodus from the church, Samford said, citing a Barna Group study.

“Any business that is losing 31 million customers is going out of business,” he told a room of Christian journalists and editors. “[It] is the greatest crisis among Christians today in the U.S., Canada and some parts of Europe…We must break the silence in our publications.”

This news letter properly discerns the seeker movement.

clipped from www.ericbarger.com Many churches are counting on the entertainment factor to carry them because they are in fact void of spiritual depth and power. No matter how well executed or presented, “special effects”, trite skits or “positive” sermonettes are just so much drivel without the supernatural hand of God upon them. Perhaps, in the natural, it is simply easier to attract and then appease the carnality of men instead of making the uncomfortable stands which God’s word implores us to make. If we lead our congregations to focus on shallow, eternally vacant and theologically errant gimmicks like the “Forty Days of Purpose” then praying, fasting, studying and seeking God for a bona fide supernatural encounter such as the early Church regularly experienced will seem far less risky - or important. God help us!

This is a really great article on socialism and fascism it should help you to understand it better, why it will fail and why it always end up in dictatorship. Then he begs the question, if the world is going socialist what will the global dictatorship it will evolve into look like? The answer of course is the Beast.

The world is already going socialist in many ways. If the US elects a socialist leader like Obama or Clinton the world will be well into the start of the global socialist cycle that he implies. If that is true the Beast Antichrist global dictator is not far behind.

Communism Is Not Dead! - CWN

Contrary to popular belief, communism is not dead! Rather, it is invading the West at an alarming pace - either overtly or covertly. China is a solidly communist country. Cuba remains communist and Venezuela is becoming such. The majority of southern Africa - South Africa included - is either controlled by communists or moving rapidly in that direction. The new communists may not proclaim themselves to be such. They use other terms such as socialism, etc., but communist thought is alive and well in the halls of academia. The communist collective process has invaded our governments, schools, state, provincial and county governments, businesses and even Bible-based churches. Few pastors and Christians in churches utilizing the popular church growth programs realize they are based on the collective process designed by atheist Vladimir Lenin to brainwash the masses and impose Marxist control on society.

Something should be wrong with this picture, given communism’s record of death and disaster and its persecution of Christians and Jews, but because of the nature of how the transition has occurred - repacking old ideas in new wrapping - few have noticed. In this article, we’ll look at how socialism, communism’s wicked stepsister, has replaced capitalism as the dominant economic and political paradigm in the West.

I think this excellent article hits the nail on the head. The mega church movement makes too many godless compromises that focus on the felt needs of the people. They should be putting the focus on Christ. For without a spiritual rebirth from Jesus man can do nothing for God in this world.

They think people will come to Christ through worldly methodologies instead of hearing the word of God and believing.

clipped from www.worldnetdaily.com The tension between private and public faith that is created by the challenges of secularism has forced too many Christians in the “mega-church” movement to make unnecessary and godless compromises. In too many of the populist churches the message has shifted from a God-in-Christ-centeredness to a focus on people, their “emotions” and their “felt needs.” It’s as though Oprah Winfrey has become the patron saint of the mega-church establishment. Feel-good preachers spend a gazillion dollars promoting the myth that Jesus’ sole purpose in coming to this earth was to ensure our happiness, our health, our wealth and our good looks, and that a “spiritual how-to guide” can be had in exchange for a simple contribution.

The purpose driven leaders are teaching pastors to demonize Christian leaders that are against their purpose driven program. All that is documented in the link below.

Are Those That Oppose The Purpose Driven Agenda Leaders From Hell? - CWN: “Think carefully about what is being said in that statement. Southerland is encouraging pastors to think of those who may be their brother or sister in Christ as actually ‘leaders from hell!’ Why? Because they question the validity of a
church growth program which lacks Scriptural basis to support it. Talk about
demonizing your opposition because you don’t have a solid argument with which to respond to them except ‘Everybody’s doing Purpose Driven’ or ‘it gets results.’
I guess this motes operandi is not reserved for pundits and politicians alone.”

I don’t know where the Bible teaches that church gathering for fellowship, teaching and worship were to be designed to Evangelize the world through a water down entertainment service? Seems to me that these people think the Church gathering should now become the place to tickle unbelievers ears of unbelievers.

Gee, I always thought the Church was to go out to the world to tell them the good news so that they would believe and become part of the Body of Christ and then join them because they are part of the Body. But no, they would have us believe that sinners need to come to the Body and get an entertainment service so that they may someday be persuaded to attend a program that they may or may not lead them to Christ. Heck, even the seeker creekers have admitted that this approach has been a failure and they now need to rethink everything. You might think the purpose driven people would realize at least that much, but I guess not.

Seeker Friendly Church Leader Admits They Have Done It All Wrong - CWN: “If you simply want a crowd, the “seeker sensitive” model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust.

In a shocking confession, Hybels states: We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own. Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth. “

I know some of you are going to find this totally incredible but the granddaddy of the seeker movement, Bill Hybels has come out and said that the seeker churches made a mistake, it does not work.

“Perhaps the most shocking thing of all in this revelation coming out of Willow Creek is in a summary statement by Greg Hawkins:

Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.

Isn’t that what we were told when this whole seeker-sensitive thing started? The church growth gurus again want to throw away their old assumptions and “take out a clean sheet of paper” and, presumably, come up with a new paradigm for ministry.
Should this be encouraging?”

Here we are again back to rethinking. Is there any tie in with the paradigm shift in my previous post, any tie in with Robert Schuller’s rethinking conference? Is this rethinking movement now going to replace the seeker movement with something even worse. Is that their paradigm shift? Stay tuned.

Compromise isn’t just found in the Emergent Movement - CWN: “As W. Graham Scroggie said, “Light and darkness, right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error are incompatibles . . . when they compromise it is the light, the right, the good, and the truth that are damaged.”

The biggest danger to the evangelical Church is not false religion or atheism, but compromise; it has always been a tool of the enemy. When compromise occurs, we can have church growth but no depth; numbers, but no character; enormous buildings, but small hearts. We “play” Christian, but have the tendency to compromise everything that Christ stood for. We have riches, wealth, and prosperity, but neglect the weightier matters—love, mercy, and forgiveness. When compromise reigns, we can easily become insensitive, indifferent, ineffective, unforgiving, unloving, unmoved, and self-righteous. “Where does Christianity destroy itself in a given generation? It destroys itself by not living in the light, by professing a truth it does not obey” (Tozer). (See Revelation 2:1-29 & 3:1-22.)”

Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit - CWN Please do not misunderstand. I gleaned some helpful stuff from the conference. But, as a leader who submits to the authority of God revealed objectively in the Scripture, I have always been troubled by the weak ecclesiology and overall weak theology coming from this organization. The market-driven, consumer-centered approach to the Church is simply contrary to the teaching of Scripture about God (His character); Humanity (Our fallen condition); the Church (centered on the Lord Jesus) and Salvation (a call to deny self and receive God’s grace). It is a good goal to lead believers to become self-feeding, mature followers of Jesus. But this is accomplished by learning under the teachers Christ gifted to the Church (Ephesians 4:11-16). The Church gathered is for the glory of Christ through the building up of His body. To know how to lead the Church, let’s go to the Scriptures before looking to the fitness center.

The problem with Willow Creek is that they are more interested in church growth than Church growth.

They reach seekers who sometimes become growing Christians but the growing Christians find they have no purpose in life so they seek out “Purpose Driven” teaching to find their purpose but instead find theories of psychology and humanism. They then have more in common with the seekers then with mature Christians in their church and dominate the church membership and boards that continue the Laodicean seeker orientated cycle.

Paul Proctor — ‘Simple Church’ or another Smoke Screen?: “Well, it seems the mad scientists of the church growth movement have once again emerged from the laboratory of the living dead with yet another chia pet project for the jaded masses. The latest concoction they’ve come up with is something called “Simple Church.”

“Whatever you might think of the Simple Church concept, this Lifeway article by Mrs. Shrout says nothing about preaching Christ crucified or feeding the Lord’s sheep, but only promotes another book, program and process designed by men who are focused on Results & Relationships rather than repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. “

Someone is always reinventing church for a postmodern generation that cannot accept God given truth. It is not surprising that the latest movement would come from the men and women out of “Lifeway”. After all “Lifeway” reinvented Southern Baptist Sunday schools which has now become just a study of their magazines.

If you really want “Simple Church” forget about all these vain philosophies of men and just get back to the simple basic biblical doctrines of the faith.

Paul Proctor — Our Survey Said!: “the overwhelming majority of ‘church switchers’ let me know that they had left to find a more traditional church because of three things:
1. Rick Warren’s teachings and growing influence at their former church.
2. The Purpose Driven agenda had recently been implemented at their former church.
3. Their former church had become too contemporary. ”

Other reasons given for their leaving included: former churches had gone liberal, seeker sensitive, CGM, church growth methodology, Willow Creek, Emergent, new age, Alpha, Prayer of Jabez, teaching heresy, playing loud music, rock and roll, preaching watered-down message, not being fed spiritually, the Word of God was replaced with jokes, stories, drama, psychology and social gospel, the full counsel of God was not being preached, the doctrine was not sound, unbiblical teachings prevailed in Sunday school, pastor preached from The Message Bible, no sense of reverence, pastor preached topically rather than “expositionally,” no hymns were sung, only praise ditties performed, depravity and debt-heavy building programs ensued, etc, etc, etc… many things I personally believe are directly related to the top three reasons.

So, as I predicted in last week’s article, my findings were vastly different from those reported in the Christian Post.”

Of course those that took part in this poll are quite different than the average reader of the Christian Post. They are more biblical orientated.

Why Do Some Pastors Deliberately Avoid Teaching Their Church Doctrine? - CWN

“these doctrines were to be “taught” and “preached.” In other words, it was not the prerogative of those elders that were appointed by the apostles to minimize the importance of doctrinal precision. Similarly, I don’t think we can be like Jesus or like the apostles in our leadership without emphasizing what they emphasized. It is, in fact, ludicrous to think otherwise. I don’t think Paul would listen very sympathetically to our explanation of why we have minimized doctrine for the sake of church growth.

Elvis Impersonator Leads Sunday Morning Worship - CWN

“As the man who impersonated Elvis slithered all over the church “stage”, (yes, churches now have “stages”), it is fair to say that he really represents the purest example of the evangelicalism brought to us by Bill Hybels and Rick Warren.”

“The spirit of anti-christ is alive and well in the evangelical church. It comes through the hearts of idolatrous pastors who long ago sold their souls to the gods of church growth. Not content to preach the full counsel of God and let God build their churches, these pastors seek temporal success and popularity and as the video proves, they will do anything to get it. Absolutely anything. And they are shameless. God has given these idolators over to their own way and that’s why we have not yet seen the depths to which these churches will go to draw a crowd.”

Lynn Stuter — “The Secret” - Christianity or New Age?: Part II

“For one very simple reason: the New Age religious world view is the “spiritual dimension” that is inextricably engrained in the transformation of America from a constitutional republic to a participatory democracy. In short, it is the intent, the agenda of these people that they will usher in a one-world religion based solely on the New Age world view! You see, while you might be willing to allow them their religious beliefs, they are not willing to allow you yours. In fact, in the unpublished papers of one world futurist (fancy name for New Age theosophist), she states emphatically (sic) we are all atoms in a molecule (representing the one-world system concept); radical atoms (dissenters) must be exterminated in the greater good of the collective whole. Do I need to paint a picture?
The New Age world view, along with its near cousin, humanism, permeates government-run public schools, the work place in the name of Total Quality Management, and is rapidly infiltrating churches in the name of “the church growth movement” while pastors are being emasculated by the promise of overflowing pews. “