Youth Ministry

I am currently reading the late Robert Webber's book, published in 2002, The Younger Evangelicals. In chapter 10 he talks about Youth Minsitry. Here is a great quote from a youth worker Webber heard at a conference he attended in 1998. I've written a few times in the past here about the need to dump the party atmosphere in our youth groups and get down to serious business. I think this quote says it very well,

"I followed the traditional approach to youth work. It was party, party, party---of the Christian sort, of course. We did skating parties, pizza parties, sleepovers, trps, retreats, and all the usual 'entertainment' plus a devotion to reach the young. But all of this was to no avail. Hardly anyone came. It was like banging my head against the wall. The more 'entertainment' I offered, the less the kids seemed interested.

As I began to think and pray about my frustration at being unable to reach these kids, it was as though God spoke into my despair and said,

'You're doing the wrong thing. These kids have more entertainment than they need. Television, MTV, school parties and the like. They don't want more of the same in church. What they want is Me. Give them Me and they will come.'

In obedience to what I heard God saying to me but with skepticism, fear and trembling, I put an end to all the entertainment stuff and announced that the main event of our youth group was to be a Friday night prayer meeting. To my shock but utter delight kids have come out of the woodwork everywhere. They sit on the floor and sing, they lay hands on each other and pray. I literally don't have enough space for all the kids who want to come and participate in this event."

The Real Problem with Bentley

Bob at the Onward, Forward, Toward blog has written a masterful piece on the Todd Bentley "restoration." Something he brings out that I don't think I've really heard before anywhere is this (in his words),

In fact, along with being restored in right standing with God, Todd needs to also be restored in right standing with the church.

He doesn't mean a certain church, but the evangelical church body. In other words, it's not his wife only and his followers that he has betrayed, but the whole Body of Christ of which he is a member. Bob correctly asks why no restoration to that Body, instead of to Bentley's old "ministry" position?

Bob goes on to say,

Never to see their [the Third Wavers] global conquest. Never to see their end-times wealth transfer of the wealth of the wicked laid up for the just. Never to see their political candidates elected (or the ‘deborah’ not get elected) to overthrow abortion and establish Christianity as the official state religion….. Never to see their end-time harvest global revival. Christianity and economics goes through bareness, recessions and famines that another mega fast, super revival, and another ‘if my people’ really can not turn around.

Bob nicely has summarized everything wrong with the Charismatic Third Wave- Apostolic/Prophetic movement today. He ends with this great last thought, summing it all up,

And we still haven’t gotten to the crux of the problem yet because there is still an intent of restoring Todd back to ministry instead of restoring Todd back to the body. Meanwhile, blame is being laid on the devil, mistresses, lack of rest, and people coming against the revival instead of Todd’s poor personal choices.

A really great blog post. Now go read the whole thing at the link in the first line of this post.

Quote of the Week

"In writing of the movement, I would like first to state what I mean by revival as witnessed in the Hebrides. I do not mean a time of religious entertainment, with crowds gathering to enjoy an evening of bright gospel singing; I do not mean sensational or spectacular advertising — in a God-sent revival you do not need to spend money on advertising. I do not mean high-pressure methods to get men to an inquiry room — in revival every service is an inquiry room; the road and hill side become sacred spots to many when the winds of God blow. Revival is a going of God among his people, and an awareness of God laying hold of the community. Here we see the difference between a successful campaign and revival; in the former we may see many brought to a saving knowledge of the truth, and the church or mission experience a time of quickening, but so far as the town or district is concerned no real change is visible; the world goes on its way and the dance and picture-shows are still crowded: but in revival the fear of God lays hold upon the community, moving men and women, who until then had no concern for spiritual things, to seek after God."


_____Duncan Campbell, The Lewis Awakening, p. 14-15

Critics of Word-Faith Need to Supply Accurate Info

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know I am a follower of SOME of the Word of Faith teaching as I find it very cross-centered, Christ-centered and Scripture-centered. And then there is the OTHER part of the teaching--the part I leave in tehe garbage can. I realize this upsets most of my readers and I would really like to apologize but God keeps impressing me to stand up for the good part. So I do with the possibility of being very, very misunderstood or even worse, being thought of as an airhead flake. "You know those Southern California types"--all airheads they say.....

They think -- who would use an Alfred E. Neuman smiley except a flaky So. Cal person?

But I assure you that I am not an airhead or a blonde or an airhead. Most people out here think I am toooo conservative - at least for having grown up here. So, I want to explain once more why I firmly believe that not ALL of the Faith message should be thrown out. First, we need to define that message. Who are we talking about exactly? Hagin? Copeland? Hinn? Joel Osteen? Others?

I see a radical difference between many of the Faith teachers today and Kenneth Hagin. So, I talk about him, not the others. People who trash him obviously haven't read him or listened to him much. Here is an example:

In an issue of a Christian magazine (very Calvinistic), is this Letter to the Editor. The writer was raised in a Word-Faith church. HEre is what he wrote,

I trusted in Christ and His work on the cross as a young boy, but always felt like a second-class Christian knowing that I didn't have the "full gospel" promises of divine healing and prosperity at my disposal. With God's providence, a friend introduced the gospel to me stressing justification by faith alone, not faith plus healing plus prosperity plus tongues. It was that moment where I felt liberated, knowing the Blood of Christ satisfied the wrath of God.

Well, this is very sad. First of all, he is not reflecting at all what Hagin taught. However, after myself being in four Word-Faith chruches, I can readily understand what happened. Sadly, so many of these pastors do not accurately carry out the teaching. Most are not trained theologically and get off-balanced. Some are just plain abusive and should not be in the ministry at all. But when you have churches that are independent, started by any Joe Schmoe without any accountability, this is what you can get. Sadly, Hagin was anti-denominational and this is the tragic result. So what did Hagin really teach about what the letter writer was talking about? Here is one of scads of teachings about this subject of justification by faith alone from Hagin. This just appeared in this month's Word of Faith magazine, the magazine of Hagin's ministries. Hagin died a few years ago but his minsitry has been carried out by his son and daughter-in-law.

This is found beginning on page 9 of this month's issue,

Righteousness is a gift. Too often we have associated righteousness with good works. The Bible teaches good works and right conduct, but all of our good works and right conduct will never make us righteous. If good works made us righteous, we wouldn't need Jesus.

Now listen to what he says next,

Another fallacy about righteousness is that we've thought we had to grow into some kind of "high spiritual state" to be righteousness. Well, thank God we can grow in the Lord and develop spiritually. But we cannot grow in righteousness. You will never be more righteousness than you are right now![He's talking about Christians, not non-Christians here].

He then quotes Romans 10:10 which says, "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness..."

He then continues with this thought,

How does a man become righteousness? He believes unto righteousness because he believes on Him who is our righteousness, Jesus Christ.!
Your standing is as good as any other Christian's.

Ok...that's it. Instead of believing one person,even a pastor, maybe one should read the source. After this, I do hope when people trash the good part of the Faith movement, they will read or listen to the source which would probably be Hagin. I personally don't vouch for anyone else because after Hagin it really started to get off-kilter. Then, if they believe hHagin has taught incorectly, fine. But most of the time they just parrot someone else they've read or heard. The letter writer also talks about Hagin being in New Thought (I suppose he meant Kenyon). When someone writes what you read above (Hagin's article) I don't see how in the world anyone could say he is into New Thought. I think the one thing that is very problematicwith his teaching is the phrase, "Name it and Claim it." Tomorrow I will tackle that one because it really does need to be discussed and analyzed.

Thanks for listening. I realize that this was a hard post for some.

Pagan and Occultic Influences on Evangelicalism-3

The following is the description of the book, Out of India, the story of Caryl Matrisciana.


"Out of India is the biography of Caryl Matrisciana. Born and raised in India, Caryl saw firsthand the effects that Hinduism had on the people of that nation. After leaving India as a young adult, she became involved in the counter-culture New Age movement, only to find that the elements of Hinduism and the New Age were very much the same. Later as a Christian, Caryl discovered that this same spirituality had entered the Christian church through various avenues."


I want to point out these words in the above description,

Caryl saw firsthand the effects that Hinduism had on the people of that nation.

A lot of people don't get that there is a law of cause and effect in the world. From Rousseau on certain people have idolized pagan cultures as being "pure, untainted, childlike." I am certainly not in favor of the colonialism approach that other peoples are inferior to the first world peoples. But when talking about cultures, please bear in mind that a cultures' religion absolutely forms that culture. Pagan religions keep people in bondage. When Westerners begin to bring those ideas onto their cultures it is bad enough, but when evangelical Christians begin to bring it into Christianity through ignorance of what contemplative spirituality and spriitual formation really is, it's inexcusable! The problem is most Christians today don't have a clue as to what is happneing in the spiritual realm. Most Pentecostal churches today want to be "cool" and so don't teach this anymore, and most Charismatic churches are so out "there" that they don't really understand the realm they seem to think they know.

If you wish to read more about Caryl Matrisciana, here is the link to her website,

http://carylmatrisciana.com/x2

Pagan and Occultic Influences on Evangelicalism-2

Continuing with this theme I started in the previous post, here is another person who came out of New Age, converting to Christianity. Let's see what Warren Smith says,


Today it is very sad to see so many believers falling under the influence of the same spirit that influenced me when I was in the "new age." This spirit says that it is a time for "breakthroughs" and for the fulfillment of our "destiny"; that there is something "new" and exciting in the wind. This teaching claims that we are in the midst of a great "transition" that will result in a "paradigm shift," and that through "new revelation" and "personal experience" God is in the process of taking the church to a "new dimension" and to a whole "new level." Many Christian leaders these days are so sure that what they are hearing and experiencing is from God, they are rarely testing the spirits, or even considering the possibility that they are being deceived.


Source: http://lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?p=1345&more=1&c=1

Pagan and Occultic Influences on Evangelicalism-1

I'm becoming more and more alarmed by this flood of so-called "contemplative spirituality" and also, "spiritual formation" that is coming into our churches and Christian colleges/seminaries. The reason I'm concerned is because of the several articles and blogs I've read by former Buddhists, Hindus and dedicated New Agers (including satanists and witches)who are now converted Christians and are sounding the alarm. And what is the alarm they are sounding? They seem to be all saying that the "contemplative spirituality" and "spiritual formation" they are seeing today in the church isn't Biblical at all, but has Buddhist/Hindu/New Age-occult roots. The most compelling point of this for me is that all of these voices don't always seem to know each other. In other words, they aren't all in some group or movement. They seem to be operating fairly individually. So, for the next few days, I'll give you some small blurbs from and links to the articles to whet your interest.

Here is the first one from Ministry Today magazine,

I began to thirst for more than fellowship. Weekly, I searched the church library looking for answers on issues that were of importance to me as a former Buddhist. I searched for books on Christian meditation, but found only those suggesting that Zen meditation made them better Christians. (I knew Zen from my studies and practice, and even as a new Christian saw it as incompatible with the Christian faith.)
This ideology is not confined to books alone. One friend claims that he was healed by his Zen priest's treatments. Now at his doctor's advice, he's practicing Buddhist meditation at home-albeit with a twist: He uses the Lord's prayer instead of praying to the Buddha. Although claiming to have a love of Christ, he has a very limited understanding of the theological underpinnings of his faith.

This confusion may be traced to the fact that a high percentage of evangelicals no longer believe in the exclusivity of the Christian faith. Instead, according to an August 2005 Beliefnet.com poll, “Eight in 10 Americans-including 68 percent of evangelicals-believe that more than one faith can be a path to salvation, which is most likely not what they were taught in Sunday school.” Buddhist theology and practice is antithetical to biblical Christianity. For instance, the Buddhist objective in meditation is to empty one's mind while seeking union with the cosmos, ultimately buying into the Serpent's ancient lie, “You shall become as gods.”
Since we have already been saved through His grace, we don't meditate to accumulate merit as would a Buddhist. Through contemplation, we focus our minds on His Word and His works, waiting upon Him and actively listening. Christian meditation takes discipline, but is only fruitful by the grace of God (see 2 Cor. 3:5; 9:8).


Here is the link to the entire article,

http://ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/ministry-outreach/evangelism/11979-the-buddhist-next-door

Compromise and the Holy Spirit

This is a great post about what is wrong with the evangelical church today.
The writer says that we need to learn how to walk in the Spirit; the Holy Spirit that is. I had to make that clear as there are so many s(S)pirits roaming around today that people confuse for the Holy One.

Compromise is very related IMO to the Hegelian Dialectic of Synthesis. So, here is the link to this post entitled, Compromise is a Curse".

Christian Carnival CCLXVIII

*Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival.

First up is Alison at Christian Publishing Tips with her post, Unintended Markets: When Your Book Impacts People You Never Expected. She relates that Christian Author Ann Velia found that God had bigger plans for her book than she realized. If you are, or want to be a Christian author, Alison's blog might be a good reference.

*Rodney at RodneyOlsen.net writes about what our response should be to corruption in our community. Underbelly
What should our response be to corruption in our community? Rodney asks important questions like, should we speak out? Should we seek to create influence? He uses the example of a man in Australia who fought corruption there to illustrate his points.

*I don't know if you've heard of the ministries that are dealing with pornography and prostitutes, but there are some around. David of David McDougal.com is committing lots of moolah as well as participation in an interesting event to raise money for one of these ministries - a bowling competition. The ministry he is bowling for is called XXXChurch.com. Read about this interesting event and what these ministries are doing to combat this plague in David's intriguing post entitled, Bowling For Porn.

*Years ago many of us read Hank Hanegraaf's book, Christianity in Crisis. Now it seems that Hank has reissued an updated version (2009) of the book. You can read a review about this new edition at The 21st Century Article Blog in JLS's post, Book Review: Christianity In Crisis. I will give you a hint as to what Hanegraaf is saying now. You thought it was bad in the 1980's......wait until you tune into the 21st century Christian TV.

*Using the story of Joseph as a model, the Light along the Journey blog explains that the Christian doesn't always know where he is going, but he does know that God Himself has chosen a definite path for him, in the post, How to Be Absolutely Certain & Completely Clueless at the Same Time

*Shannon at The Minority Thinker has presented a very important point that is being discussed a lot in Christian circles and especially on Christian blogs. Sadly, Christians are being caricatured in the media on the one hand as rabid fundamentalists and narrow-minded haters; or as circus clowns. How then do we help the world understand what a Christian really is? In other words, the world has low expectations so how do we raise them? In her post, Ashamed of the Profession . . . Or the Colleagues?, Shannon uses an example from her own profession of a writer to help us answer this very important question.

*The Chasing the Wind blog presents a sermon instructing us how not to trust the Lord, as well as four points in how to trust Him. Can you guess the four points? I didn't. But I know them now, and so will you when you read this post entitled, Act on Revealed Truth.

*At Chapters of My life there is an absolutely delightful blogpost you must read. I'm not going to give it away - just to tell you this is the link - The Faith Community. Well, I'll give you a small hint: I wish my church was like this.

*Well finally! At Homeward Bound we get to read a truthful description of tithing and whether we should or shouldn't. And on the record, I agree with this post 100%. You've just gotta read this one, entitled, Bad Verses on Tithing.

*At the Christ's Bridge blog, if you've been hurt by a church, you can submit a letter about it and it might be published at another site. As someone who has been in these abusive churches, I will be very interested in reading the letters that come in. Get the information at this post, Help Those Who have been Hurt by the Church.

*Now here's a fascinating viewpoint of global warming.
The Evangelical Ecologist asks an interesting question after reading about what Nigerians think is causing it. You can read it at his post entitled, Climate Change an act of God's vengeance

*I decided last year I had to take a DVD art history course since I knew nothing about the subject. You see, I am art challenged. Of course I knew the most exciting part of the course would be the Renaissance and the beautiful paintings and architecture. The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica were of course covered in the course. And now, courtesy of Victor at the St. Peters Square blog, you can read about and see pictures of these beautiful structures. Just go to his link entitled St. Peters Square and Plaza. By the way, at the end of the post there is a link to more pictures and at the end of that link another link to more pictures and....and.....
I spent a lot of time at this blog and I imagine you will too. Very inspiring indeed....:)

*Here is the scenario: For some strange reason you need an ox. Your neighbor loans you his. It dies on you because it's in bad shape when you get it. Your neighbor whips out his Torah and says you gotta pay for a new ox. You say, "no way Jack.....I'm giving this lame carcass back. So who is right? And what if we ramp this situation up to the future and your neighbor loans you his wreck of a car and it dies. Do you pay for new parts or does he? Never fear; Jeremy of Parableman is here, as usual, to sort out these tangled ethical questions. To see his answer to these dilemmas check out his post entitled, The Ethics of Borrowing.
Seriously, this is a good exercise on what we are to do with the spirit of the Old Testament Law and therefore I thought it worth my time to have read and studied Jeremy's post. I think it will be worth your time too.

Have you heard about this new TV program called Castle?
Ken at C. Orthodoxy gives his impressions this new program, Castle, and realizes that the premise of the main character can help us realize that.........well, I will let you read the blog to finish that sentence. But here is a word hint: story. The link to the post is here - Castle

*Mark at Pseudo-Polymath goes into a deepo discussion about the difference - or is there one - between personal ethical beliefs and political ones of the entire community. How do we separate these? Or do we? Mark uses abortion as an example of his thesis in his post, Of the Personal and the Political: Being A Christian in the Public Square


*Here are two important questions:
1) What do you want the most?
2) What does your life show that you want the most of?
Annette at the Fish and Cans blog talks about these two questions and the related subject of addiction in her post entitled, True Woman - The Anatomy of Addiction.

John at Ancient Hebrew Poetry writes about faith as it's found in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk in his post, Assurance of things hoped for: Habakkuk 2:1-4.
(Question to John: How is one really supposed to pronounce Habakkuk?). Seriously, if you have never read this Old Testament book, this is a good blog post to get into it.

*I am taking a 'Writing Your Memoirs' class, so I really was able to clue into Jody's post at her blog, Devotionals. She encourages us to tell our story, but especially our spiritual story, to our children. She also shares the story of her son in her post,
Tell my Story.

*This is a great post, especially if you like satire and tongue-in-cheek. Did you know there is a ministry of complaining? Yes indeedy, according to Henry of the Threads from Henry's Web blog, in his post entitled, The Ministry of Complaining.

*Casey really likes people---well, that is, IF they leave him alone and don't encroach on his life.....:) Then it even gets worse. Jesus shows up one night when Casey is tired and asks him to pray. More encroachment. I really liked this blog post as I could relate to it so much. And, I bet many other readers can too. Casey writes at the Casey@TheLimitless blog and this wonderful post can be found here -- A Look in the Mirror.

*This has to be one of the most unusual and interesting treatments of the Trinity I've ever read or heard. Postmoderns will definitely like it. I'm not going to give it away, but it was done by Weekend Fisher at her blog, Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength in a post entitled, Re-thinking the shape of the Trinity: Part 3.

*Rey presents at his blog, The Bible Archive, something called the unified principle. He shows how this works in an example from Genesis 49:10. If you are into the nuances of Bible interpretation (or even if you aren't)this is definitely a post you should read. The post is entitled, Hermeneutics and Judah’s Scepter.

*Many churches today are asking for different viewpoints (in postmodern lingo this is called "different voices") other than those of the over 45 elder/pastor crowd. What happens when a church asks the student ministries what they would do differently in the various sections of the church's life? Jan at the view from her talks about this in her post entitled, a courageous question. You will find in the post, a link to the actual results and main points of this conversation between the church leadership and the student ministries in one church.

*My submission for this week is an ongoing project I am undertaking. And what am I doing? I'm looking for really intelligent and reasonable voices to help the postmodern generation to see the massive problems of the emergent "conversation" approach to evangelical Christianity. So far, I've found one - D. A. Carson. But now, I am excited to have found another, David Wells. I report on what I've read so far in the fifth book of a series he has done. That post is found at David Wells' Great Series.

By the way, on the left-hand side here, you might have noticed the bookshelf with the books I'm reading lately. If you are interested in this for your blog, or just want to discuss books you're reading with other readers, check out the
shelfari site.

Back to the Third Wave....Again

When I started this blog almost five years ago now, I was writing mostly about the Third Wave Charismatic movement and it's massive problems. By Third Wave Charismatic, I mean the so-called revivals of the 1990's in Toronto and Pensacola, Fl; Wagner and his apostles and prophets; the Kansas City prophets still hanging around after all of this time and merging with the Third Wavers; Lakeland and Todd Bentley, and so forth. If you haven't heard, Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma magazine, has really questioned this new marriage by Bentey (after his wife divorced him because he had an affair) to the lady he had the affair with. Supposedly, there were "leaders" who were helping and mentoring Bentley. Rick Joyner was one of them. Joyner has fired off an angry response to Grady. I'm not sure why Joyner is on his high horse. I mean where was Joyner and the other "mentors" when Bentley married his "affair lady?" Did they approve that? Frankly, after all Todd has done, I would tell me no more mentoring until he shows better sense.

But, that's just me.

Dating Abuse

The Boston Public Health Commission recently conducted a survey of 200 Boston teens between the ages of 12 and 17. They asked who they thought was responsible in the alleged beating of pop star Rihanna from her boyfriend, fellow music star Chris Brown, in February. Almost half responded that they felt Rihanna was at fault. The O. J. Simpson trial started the conversation in thiis country of spousal/date abuse. But for some reason, the debate hasn't reached many teens. I wonder, however, what is the socio-economic makeup of the respondents? I've read other surveys of this type and this high rate is usually from poor areas. I wonder if these results would be the same in Boston's wealthier suburbs. I doubt it. Sadly, so many teens watch only stations like MTV which glorifies this type of abuse through the video songs. Sadly, they don't watch programs like Oprah as she's had excellent programs on this topic. I remember reading a few years ago about a simlar survey in my Los Angeles Times. The survey asked all of the senior girls (if I recall correctly there were 200) in a high school in New Mexico if they expected to be abused by a boyfriend. Every single girl responded "yes," whether they were dating or not. Listen to what many of them said.

"It's just part of dating. You just take it."

Here is what some of the teens said in the Boston survey - 71 percent said that arguing was a normal part of a relationship; 44 percent said fighting was a routine occurrence.

So where did all their self-esteem disappear to? I thought for the past 35 years we were teaching self-esteem in our schools, especially to girls. Well, after reading a book I highly recommend, Generation ME by Dr. Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at California State University at San Diego, it is more troubling than we might realize. She found that college girls today have less self-esteem than high school girls did in the 1950's. BUT, we've been told constantly by the media that we must teach more self-esteem. It seems that all of this teaching is backfiring. I realize the root cause isn't the teaching, although Dr. Twenge does point out that it certainly contributes by giving young folks an exaggerated opinion of themselves. The root cause is the lack of family cohesion and morals as well as a lack of a God-centeredness IMO. The self has replaced God. It's difficult enough for adults to navigate through this new confusing self-centeredness, but adolescnets? Churches that are getting away from that a Christ and cross-centerdness in order to be "relevant" are just contributing to the problem and giving their young ones no foundation, or a shaky one at best.

FYI - I've been interestd in this topic of abuse and the codependents who get under it for 29 years now. In fact I have a website about it called the Faustian Covenant if you're interested.



Survey source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/13/many_boston_teens_surveyed_say_rihanna_is_at_fault_for_assault/

The "Almost" Gospel

At the Nine Marks blog Greg Gilbert helps us to understand how the emergents just "almost" gets to the gospel, but not quite. What are our young evangelicals learning today in our high school and college groups? Check with your church's youth group leader to see if Rob Bell's NOOMA films are being used (shown). Here is a blurb from Gilbert's excellent analysis - what's wrong with the NOOMA films,

The gospel as Bell communicates it in NOOMA runs something like this: All of us are broken, sinful, selfish, and prideful people. We carry around the baggage of our hurts, our resentments, and our jealousies. As a result we are just a shell of the kind of people God intends us to be. But our God is a loving God who accepts us and loves us just as we are. He can comfort us, heal us, and make us whole, real, authentic, living, laughing people. Not only that, but Jesus came to show us how to live revolutionary lives of love, compassion, and acceptance. By learning from his teachings and following him, we can live the full and complete lives that God intended

David Wells' Great Series

I have wanted for some time to read David Wells'* series on what's happening in the evangelical church today. It has five volumes in the series with the fifth being a summary of the first four. I was able to obtain the fifth one through Interlibrary loan and am reading it now. If you don't know what interlibrary loan is, find out....it's great! I rarely buy books. I get them from my library or through interlibrary loan. My library can get books from libraries all over the United States including many college, university and seminary libraries.

The name of Wells' fifth book in the series, published just last year, is The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-Lovers Marketers, and Emergents in thePostmodern World.

I want to quote a part of page 92,

The desire of marketers and emergents to engage the culture is commendable. Engaging it, though, is not the same as capitulating to it. Missionaries know the difference. They know they can adaprt to local dress and blend in by learning the language and by fitting in with the accepted rhythms of daily life. They can understand the fears and hopes of those they serve without actually embracing those hopes and fears themselves. However, the day they accept the worldview of those they work among, it's time to go home. They have nothing to say anymore.

The marketers, and especially the emergents, are emulating how missionaries relate to other cultures by relating to this culture in much the same way. That is a good start. However, then it falls apart as Wells points out. Why are they departing from the faith so readily? Wells has nailed it in the last part of the above paragraph. They are accepting the worldview of those they serve. And as a result, they really don't have anything to say. Boy, does Wells nail it right on the head! Nice........

I think I will definitely be reading the first four volumes of Wells' series.

*David Wells is a professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Barna Poll Shows Sad State of Christians

Well, the new Barna poll came out today and already everyone is talking about it. Here are the results and it's sad for many of us. I'm selecting only some things from the poll, mostly about what born-again Christians believe. Before I give the poll results, for those who don't know, George Barna is a born-again Christian pollster. I tend to believe his polls about what evangelicals believe moe than say, the CNN, USA, etc. polls because I'm not sure these secular polsters understand who evangelicals are. At the end of each poll, Barna defines his terms like born-again, evangelical, liberal Protestant, etc., So, we know that he understands what these groups believe.

Here are some of the results of Barna's survey. Read it and weep.

Overall, the current research revealed that only 9% of all American adults have a biblical worldview. Among the sixty subgroups of respondents that the survey explored was one defined by those who said they have made a personal to commitment to Jesus Christ that is important in their life today and that they are certain that they will go to Heaven after they die only because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior. Labeled “born again Christians,” the study discovered that they were twice as likely as the average adult to possess a biblical worldview. However, that meant that even among born again Christians, less than one out of every five (19%) had such an outlook on life.


Components of Worldview Thinking

The survey found:

*Slightly less than half of the born again adults (46%) believe in absolute moral truth.
*Four-fifths of born again adults (79%) believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches.
*40% of born again adults are convinced that Satan is a real force.
*Not quite half of all born again Christians (47%) strongly reject the notion of earning salvation through their deeds.

[Note: that means that only 53% of born-again Christians beleive that one cannot earn their salvation.]

*Slightly less than two-thirds of the born again segment (62%) strongly believes that Jesus was sinless.
*93% of born again adults believe God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today.

Well at least the last one is good news. You might ask how in the world Christian evangelicals could end up this way? What do you think? You can comment in the Comments section. I will weigh in first and say the answer is - - bad, inconsistent or non-existent teaching. I said a few posts ago that the level of both pastoral and adult Sunday School/Bible study teaching, IMO, is on a very low level. I suggested using a Socratic dialectic as a good way to raise it up. Also, centering on the Bible more than the psychobabble and self-esteem teaching we are hearing today, not even to mention occultic experiences (Third Wave Charisamtics), occultic practices (contemplative spirituality and spiritual formation) and emergent postmodern relativism and Hegelian synthesis that are flooding into our churches.

Who Should Be Teaching Our Church Youth?

A very long time ago I taught junior high in the church I was attending. There were two of us teaching seventh grade girls, the other teacher being older than I was and considered one of the best teachers the junior high ever had. I have now gone back to that church 40 years later but she isn't teaching junior high anymore. Did she retire? No. She was told, and I quote, "We are changing our program and so we don't need all of the teachers we had before." I have found out that many in churches throughout the country have heard that same mantra - both those who taught junior high and high schoolers in their churches. Now let me tell you what this really means, that is if the people who took over were REALLY authentic. Here is what they really meant,

"We only want those under 35 teaching our youth since we feel that you are an old fogie and unrevelant, while those under 35 are very relevant and can hold clown church for our youth so they will come and bring their parents too and then we will keep our membership and the money they bring in too."

In my church, they have the college students teaching the junior highs. Here is a question I have for these types of churches. Why don't we have high schoolers teaching 10 year olds? And why not have 10 year olds teach 5 year olds?

The answer is to stop segregating our youth from older adults so they can actually grow up. We can actually have a variety of ages working with the youth, can we not?. Stop shutting out the parents and grandparents! It will sink the church.

Oh.....I think it already has. Talk to someone who grew up in this mess and ask them how they are doing spiritually (and otherwise too).

Christian Carnival is at the C. Orthodoxy blog this week.

One of the entries is a rare one about how we can boldly go into the throne room of God BECAUSE we share in the Abrahamic covenant.

I encourage you to read this short but very effective post entitled, How to Go Boldly to the Throne.