U N R E F O R M E D

PAUL & JONNA PETRY BREAK SILENCE WITH A ROAR!

2012-03-19T19:13:00.003-07:00

Paul Petry and his wife Jonna have published something explosive! Something that both validates and redeems every fear we had regarding Mars Hill. They have published their story and supporting documents after nearly six years of silence after Paul along with Bent Meyer was unilaterally fired by Mark Driscoll for not supporting his rewrite of the bylaws in 2007/ 2008 that lead to nearly 1,000 people leaving Mars Hill church and gave Driscoll unfettered control over the church. Which in case anyone is wondering claims assets of around 31 million dollars.

The Holy Spirit is a powerful and amazing companion and guide in life. I am sad that the Petry's and Meyer's were the test case for the future roughshod nature of Mars Hill's military style leadership but am grateful that we have the Holy Spirit to show us the wolves when they are present.... Many if not all of the fears we had regarding the ambition, authoritarian leadership and ideological hero worship that we saw so sharply in our short 6 month experience with Mars Hill are brutally exposed in Petry's email chains and Jonna's story.

READ THE BLOG: JOYFUL EXILES
READ JONNA'S STORY: JONNA PETRY'S STORY

I WONDER WHAT THE SPIN WILL BE FOR THIS ONE, ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY'VE GONE ON THE RECORD A HALF DOZEN TIMES WITH LIES ALREADY.

Seek - Find - Surrender

2012-03-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

Every now and then my pursuit of God leads me past the final veil. If only for a moment I catch a fleeting and momentary glimpse of his majesty, his amazing character and size compared to us. It is something that my human words cannot even describe so I do not bother. This is in contrast to my daily pursuits that bring me near the final veil but not through it. In these prayerful pursuits he is always manifesting in the inner most chamber of my heart and soul. He is always communicating into my heart and mind. He is always proving himself available to my prayer and petitions. He is always evident in the, outside of me, emotions and sensations that ripple through me like living water when I come near.

I cannot understand those that live a life endlessly parsing out truth after truth from scripture and affirming the truths as the backbone of faith. Doctrine is critical but only the beginning. As great a book as it is, it is still incomplete. The Bible is the story of mankind broken off from and then finally restored into a loving, communicative relationship with the Father. It paints a picture of his character through the rusty and sometimes inefficient conduit of broken yet brave human beings, who have been privileged to tell the inspired tale. But the story & history ends as the connection between mankind and the Father is restored through the final payment of Jesus blood.

It seems that tribes of doctrinal orthodoxy and precision continue to become increasingly more popular in our Church. Churches herald their own success in would-be highly educated secular cultures of this city or that city and offer it as evidence that their robust, orthodox theology is critical if not essential to the continued perseverance and flourishing of the Church. To which I say rubbish.

All that successful preachers in highly educated, highly secular cultures are proving by building churches is that they are able to redirect the intellectual tendencies and precision of their culture towards the Bible. As these Churches become increasingly well known for precision and theological hair splitting and endlessly arguing with each other and everyone else over matters and meanings of words, God sits waiting, longing passionately for any of them to enter into his presence. Instead they stand outside the temple walls, pointing towards the temple arguing whether this verse means "this or that", whether this verse allows us to do "this or that", or whether the altar looks like “this or that” or whether God meant "this "this or that" endlessly engaging each other about his nature and his meaning just a few mere footsteps from his throne, rather than stepping into the temple towards the veil and discovering it for themselves.

It should be no surprise that in highly secular, highly educated cities we are finding overly enthusiastic groups parsing scripture down to the syllable. It should be no surprise that we find them endlessly debating the meaning of this or that and spending all their time in arguments, discussions, dialogues, studies and classes attaching brand names to their movements in order to separate themselves from other, less precise movements. This is still a secular culture, it is just a secular culture debating the Bible and the likes of Kierkegaard, Lewis and Calvin rather than evolution, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Marx.

If we are not engaged in a radical communicative relationship with God then we are living out a dead faith. If we have never experienced the power, beauty, peace and grace that comes with being near to God, connected to him, in communication with him, then our faith is nothing more than attempting to love and live out loyalty to a principle or ideal. AW Tozer was fighting this very same battle in the early part of the 20th century and it seems the battle lines have not moved so much as an inch.

For all my tendencies towards criticizing Church, they are sparked by and find their motor in a life that lives out a relationship with God. My prayer life is the most vital part of my soul and those rare occasions where the final veil is lifted are counted as the most sweet, dear, and precious moments of my life. They cause in me a desperate desire to experience them again, doubling down on prayer and seeking ever more vigilant his person which waits to be acknowledged by my inner self. This brings about a overwhelming need to protect the beauty and mystery of the bride against charlatanism and insufficient intellectualism that would hollow out the heart of faith and leave men and women restless as if they have never believed.

The other night I had one of these nearer experiences and it was so moving and powerful that even nearly a full week separated from it I am having trouble thinking of anything else.

If for only a half second I saw in plain view a good part of the grandeur that is God; an ancient, all powerful being that is the very architect of the universe. He lives in man form but is no man in our earthly sense. He is a God, eternally existing outside of our universe but intimately engaged in it with each of us.

It was a stirring in my heart from God that called out to me in my sinful old life, not the cunning of a proud and learned evangelist. It was he who called out to me from deep within myself, caused me to look inward towards him and discover that life is so much more fantastic and mysterious than I could ever have imagined. He compelled me against a stronghold of logic and reason to surrender my life at the cross, take up my own and join him.

God is with us. He is not a principle or a character to be gleaned from a book. He is not a being that we can be closer to or understand through a systematic theology. No he is a being with all the emotional reserves that we humans have, they just happen to be infinitely deeper and more profound. He is a being to experience relationship with, communicated with, learn from, and ultimately to worship, desire after and love.

The other night, he awoke me from my sleep to offer me comfort in the face of trials and share wisdom that humanity often overlooks.

The message of the Gospels, the key to walking with the Jesus, is learning to forsake and surrender everything for him. And it was put to me that this isn’t simply one of many important tasks we must perform, it was put to me that this is fundamental. Our love for and adoration for Jesus must compel us to surrender our full hearts to him. Our hearts must surrender everything on this earth and grab completely to Jesus so that when our day comes to be with him in eternity, we can joyfully surrender earth and joyfully leave it behind because our minds, hearts and souls are completely focused on and fully satisfied by the one and only Son of God.

It was a powerful and potent message, it was not audible but instead clearly put into my heart and mind. The message could not have been clearer. Surrender everything to Jesus, forsake everything under the sun unto the Son and you shall gain eternal life.

However mankind cannot relinquish idols of the heart unto a concept. They cannot surrender the joys of this world to a mere ideal or principle. They can only surrender the comforts and joys of this world to something real. God is real and readily available to any and all who earnestly seek him in the inner most sanctuary of their hearts. Anyone can now go rushing to the holiest of holies to know and be known by God the Father ever since the perfect work of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Mankind can no longer use Church to promote egotistic leaders, and build brand name Church fiefdoms. It can no longer use scripture as the backbone of its faith and cannot parse scripture exegetically to affirm its own intellectual or primal inclinations and impulses. Everything in the Church made by men for men must be stripped away. Pastors who preach to excite the intellectual part of the human mind must surrender this tactic or risk their own destruction. We must…..WE MUST! Call people to know God themselves.

Preachers and teachers must stop using the Bible as an outline for a lifelong lesson plan and an asset with which to build their own earthly kingdoms and fiefdoms. This will end in ruin, either on earth or in eternity. We must look honestly and convey the truth, that our relationship with God has been restored through the perfect and holy work of his son Jesus Christ. That the ransom for our debt has been paid in full for all eternity so that we can rush to the mercy seat, fall on our face in adoration worship and love and experience God ourselves.

Everything else is foolishness and human. We cannot live like it doesn’t matter. We cannot live a life that is consumed by protecting our reputation, right-fighting, theological hairsplitting, establishing and lording with authority, promoting a set of "Christian" principles over another. Despite any and every tendency of mankind to justify these things as part of the church, they are nothing more than the selfish desires of some packaged up for others to achieve their ends.

It is all meaningless. And it will all end in destruction.
Either in this age or the age to come.

Pastors who sit in the pulpit on Sunday and promote themselves, promote their works, promote their viewpoints, promote their ideals, promote even orthodox scripture are reckless fools. Forget promotion, it will earn you eternal agony, let go of orthodox scripture.... it is the foreword of an adventure through eternity.

Instead Pastors must…. MUST…. Call their followers to look inside earnestly, doggedly, passionately. Tear down and destroy every idol of the heart that stands between you and the veil, rip free every weed from your heart that keeps your attention elsewhere, conquer every obstacle that holds you back from the inner most sanctum, break free and break through into the presence of God.

Only in his presence will it become real. Only standing with eyes turned inward and open viewing the majesty of God will a man or woman be completely affirmed in their faith, compelled to forsake anything and everything else, and live their lives transformed by His power.

In America we have 70 or 80 million so called professing Christians. A quarter of our nations society is made up of people who claim to have been grafted into God’s vine, claim to have been transformed and claim to live with God’s love emanating inside them…. And yet our society is no better for it. Instead 80 million would be followers of Christ seek their own comforts, build their own kingdoms, seeking first after their own American Dream. They hold society in self-righteous contempt looking down on it with furrowed brow and wagging finger and love no better than your average secular humanist.

Why are 80 million Christians so impotently living out unremarkable lives devoid of any contrast from secular society? Why is the heartbeat of the church booming ever more loudly with orthodoxy, precision of doctrine, fundamentalism, rigid church governance, Pastoral notoriety, and a stratified class system within the church? Because we don’t bother seeking after the one we profess to know. We seek him in the scripture and literature and leader but know him not.

While he waits for each and every one of us at the veil. Just past the very bottom of our hearts, just past the very edge of our minds, he waits.

He is all that matters.

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY

2012-03-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

Last week I decided that I was going to do a 4 or 5 part series about major problems in the Western Church. In retrospect this is not good for the condition of my heart. Trying to stay tethered to Jesus through prayer and yet spending the rest of my time with a critical eye bent towards the church at large tends to lead to ugly little scabs developing all over my heart. Some of these are already present from the actions of others but many are self inflicted.

I need to be prayerfully requesting that God remove them and soften my heart, not compounding the issue by taking an ever more aggressive stance against the Western Church. So I will paraphrase the remaining issues to be done with it and then after some reflection offer up the good that has come from this whole mess.

Complimentarianism – It makes sense on its face. It has Biblical support. Unfortunately the practice of complimentarian roles tends to fall far short of the mark. When the executive pastor at a church openly admits that he has operated out of a distrustful, chauvinist and angry heart towards women, the results within that church can be poor. Men become domineering, overbearing and belittling to women. The church pigeon holes women as emotional, sharp tongued gossips who need to mind their place. The men take a seat of honor within the church and women are offered a position of less than. I know pastors say women are “different but equal” out loud, but have yet to see it practiced this way. And that’s the problem, the principle put into practice.

I agree that a man should be a strong leader in his home, but he cannot simply assert his authority over his wife and expect submission because he won the gender lottery in the womb, he must prove himself trustworthy and provide a foundation for his wife to feel safe in. Man cannot lead from ahead, standing on the mountaintop pointing which direction the family will go, he must build up underneath the family a loving, nurturing and safe foundation (nest if you will) for the family so the wife can happily relinquish control and joyfully submit knowing and trusting that her man is putting her and the families interest first.

Church Growth – I have a wealth of opinions on this one but they are opinions so probably need to stay inside my head, but I will just say this. It has been proven time and time again that a church is less effective the larger it gets. The more sites it acquires, the larger its congregation gets, the more powerful it becomes on the national stage, the less effective it becomes at pasturing its parishioners and they develop in maturity and faith at a slow plod compared to people who are attending churches of less than 150 people. Also the tendency of churches these days to offer up hip cool media marketing techniques, artsy print media and indie rock style worship sets is nothing more than Church Growth Movement 2.0. Just because you are offering up a young hipper style and going after singles rather than families and just because you are offering up a more orthodox sermon rather than the non-confrontational, watered down sermons of the Church Growth O.G.’s doesn’t make it all that different at heart, it just has a different skin.

I think the corporatization of the Western Church is truly its Achilles heel. I think this rampant ministry ambition and drive for success we see in the modern age could be the single biggest threat to authentic worship and glorifying God. Celebrity pastors are to me, Pharisees, nothing more, nothing less. People may disagree but I don’t see how a man can knowingly elevate himself or be elevated to such grandiose heights and not be. Some would say it’s the culture we live in. Well the culture should not dictate the church seeing is how the church is the eternal for all time bride of God. I don’t see it as needing to “fit in” with culture, no matter which culture that is. And I absolutely 100% disagree with the Mars Hill practice of broadcasting Mark Driscoll to all 14 churches, in part because I believe the Holy Spirit purposefully brought it to my attention. I think this is obscene promotion of one man especially when the church’s purpose is to glorify GOD ALONE. In a church that grumbles about culpability over the cult of personality surrounding Mark, it would help limit it if they didn’t promote HIM so heavily. But that may impact the bottom line of success & growth.

I know a lot of people want to say that I am being mean spirited and judgmental and not building up…. I would say and actually think Driscoll would agree, that the church at large plays with kid gloves too often. We fake nice all the time for appearance sake…. We act courteous to peoples face and grumble to ourselves…. The “nice” factor has lead to culture viewing Christians as “phony” because they won’t speak frankly.

Understand that I don’t dislike Driscoll, I get it. I get, wanting the accolades and wanting the success. I get, enjoying the fanfare from your Church….. Heck I work my arse off every day at work for the singular purpose of being successful. There is nothing wrong with pursuing excellence.

But when you try to achieve your success, fame, accolades and fanfare through God’s bride, that’s where you are treading on sacred ground. And I feel I need to speak up. Not out of hate, but to bring perspective. Maybe no one over there has even thought about it. Maybe they don’t realize it looks absurd and cultish. I hope they do realize, because while it may serve to elevate Mark Driscoll for a short time, when the backlash comes it will be that much more destructive. My hope is that MH looks at it, acknowledges it is not God honoring and has the courage and humility to make a change. It’s a big change, and one that will rock the boat, but Driscoll is all about rocking the boat!

OKAY! Now that those topics are done, I can turn the corner for good and try to figure out what the purpose of all this was.

And that is the key to these last few months…. What good has come from it? That has been the question I have been asking myself for weeks and weeks and weeks. Did God really bring us down here for this? What is the point.

It took a while to spot the good, but a lot of good has come out of it. I think my family is more tightly knitted together. The strain of chasing after MH’s agenda for 6 or 7 months and the disconnectedness that it created caused us to value closeness within the context of our family that much more when we got it back.

CONTENTEDNESS – Learning to be content in where you are right now is a key part of happiness. God isn’t a God dangling a proverbial carrot in front of our face. He wants a relationship. He wants us living out joy in our relationship with him today. I am experiencing that joy today. I am savoring the moment no matter how big or small the moment is. Life is full of God’s blessing and wonder every second if you are open, prayerful and willing. Before, I was chasing, striving, contending, posturing and struggling for that goal just a few steps up the ladder or down the road…. Now, I have surrendered and am enjoying the moments of today. Constantly striving for goals, mission and what not causes discontentedness because the happiness was always off in the distance even if just a few short feet away. Today I look inward, look upward and keep my eyes focused here. I am grateful for this.

PRAYER – I had a very active prayer life for many years in part because it was the drumbeat of my old church. They did not have a call to arms over mission or community or theological acumen but rather promoted prayer as preeminent. Reading scripture is great! But KNOWING ABOUT JESUS is useless if you don’t KNOW HIM and you KNOW HIM through prayer. At my old church they prayed over everything. There was corporate prayer, twice a week, for the church, prayer groups met for each of the youth programs, Sunday morning started with a prayer team praying for that day’s service, church plants began with a team of people praying for roughly a year to discern God’s will for the church plant and if there even was supposed to be one. Everything at our old church was underpinned by men and women praying individually and corporately. I believe I lost this mindset for a while when I got caught up in all the debating and wrestling and saber rattling. I have rediscovered it and am grateful today that I am in love with and worshipping a living God who WANTS to know me and wants me to know him.

HEAD KNOWLEDGE – Before I went to Mars Hill I was very much a man obsessed with doctrinal and theological precision. Seeing its fruit in action have caused me to surrender this idol. I would listen to a sermon like a wine taster swishing it around in my mouth to assess the character, flavor, quality and intensity and would scribble down my “exceptions” as though they really meant a damn. I loved to argue and debate, telling myself this was “iron sharpening iron”. The pomposity of this grandiose view became evident in the constant theological debate we were engaged in at small group. I now see that Doctrine has value but is not preeminent.

GRACE – Okay I haven’t shown much grace to Mark Driscoll or the team of men who metaphorically spit on us as we walked out the door at Mars Hill… at least not on this blog. I suppose that is because we never got an apology from anyone. BUT! I am remembering the grace that God offered me those many years ago after living a wretched and horrible and detestable life that was so far from worthy of God’s love I cannot even begin to describe. God saw fit to cure me of an otherwise incurable disease and saw fit to transform me from the person I was into the person I am. Those who truly know me know how powerful this transformation has been. It has been hard to watch churches offer up justification for discipline for other people’s sin when I am aware of just how gracious and forgiving God is. A God that would call out to me, pursue me, and finally save me is a God that forgives and does not keep a record. I cannot see how men who have been forgiven much, can turn around and justify disciplining other men as though they have God’s authority over them…… we are all broken sinners and the ground is level at the foot of the cross. He who seeks to stand over another is nothing more than a bully and/ or a despot.

That being said, Driscoll and company have every claim to God’s grace that I do, so instead of continuing on with criticism week after week after week of a church that probably isn’t listening anyway or doesn’t care, all I can do is offer grace.

I know they do some things wrong, but so do I. I need to take my own advice and wash feet not hands….. I need to pray for these men rather than excoriate them. I need to pray for God to correct and bring repentance…. And maybe he’ll bring some to Mars Hill too. But my heart has gotten heavier and heavier week after week and it’s starting to feel like arguing politics. The machine is what the machine is because of reasons that are out of my control and the more I try to shine a light on problems, the darker and darker I seem to get.

So for today I am joyful because God’s graces are new and so am I. And an all powerful, all knowing, sovereign God who spoke the entire universe into existence is sitting on a throne at the center of the Universe surrounding by an army of worshipping angels in some near yet separate dimension or reality and he is intimately concerned with me and you.

Life could not be any better.

The Case Against Authority 2.0

2012-02-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

THE CASE AGAINST AUTHORITY

In regard to authority and hierarchy let me first say that God does have a model of leaders in the Bible. I don’t want to go off the reservation by suggesting that there shouldn’t be leadership period and don’t want anyone to take that away from this. I am not a proponent for some weird consortium of believers who just hang around together utilizing their gifts whatever they may be with no actual leaders. But what I want to suggest is that here in America we have in many cases slipped further and further from Biblical models for leadership towards a hierarchical pyramid model that resembles a corporate American business model rather than a Biblical model as put forth by God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Whether this is out of ambition or careerism or pride, I really cannot say. But it has become a problem and is a slippery slope from which controlling, abusive and authoritarian behavior and ultimately cultic tendencies can be spawned.

Hierarchical churches can operate as such without any major problems for any number of years. But this does not mean that it is either Biblical or proper. If you happen to have a responsible, mature, caring and nurturing leader sitting atop the pyramid, then it can be a pleasant place to fellowship just like a company that is about to go bankrupt can seem like a nice place to work if the CEO is a pleasant and amiable.

But even in cases where fellowship is pleasant, the lack of accountability from your “kingpin” or senior leader can cause that particular church to start chasing after an agenda that may not specifically be God’s. When a leader does not have peers among him in the church that can hold him accountable such as a plurality of leaders, any concept, idea, belief or whim this man encounters in his mind or agenda he is inclined to follow can become the churches agenda whether or not it is God’s will.

In America we have a very “I am a follower of Paul” or “I follow Apollos” 1Cor 3:4 mindset where we glom onto movements based on charisma of the leader, quality of the preaching or quality of the worship. We are overly denominationalized, overly segmented and brutally fractured. We have hundreds of different movements, churches and mindsets operating within a few miles of each other viewing each other as friendly adversaries. We are friendly, because we have Jesus Christ in common. And we are adversaries because MY church is better. This tribal attitude ends up lionizing “OUR” pastor based on his charisma and preaching and in larger mega churches can lead to borderline deification of the pastor.

My point being that a runaway pastor can create an atmosphere prone to spiritual abuse, authoritarian and controlling behavior and ultimately fails at its primary mission which is to glorify God. This is in part because some have a skewed view of what a leader is and some have a skewed view of what leadership should look like. In a nation with cultural underpinnings that lead to hero-worship and idolization of highly visible pastors, it is all the more important to understand what Biblical leadership looks like and why it is so important.

There is no doubt that a large number of churches in America operate in a pyramid type leadership model. This model has one senior or executive pastor who usually is the most visible pastor responsible for preaching and conveying the message and being the face of a certain ministry. He may in turn have subordinate pastors who handle ministry or site specific pastoring or he may only have a group of deacons serving the parishioners. In either case this is referred to as the Moses model or the Peter model.

There has been lengthy debate over Mathew 16 and its intended purpose over the centuries. Pastors who view this verse improperly or worse leverage this verse for themselves view Mathew 16, AKA “The Keys to the Kingdom” verse as Jesus bestowing tantamount power and authority on Peter as the singular leader of the church. Peter confesses that Jesus is the messiah. Jesus in turns says that he will build his church “upon this rock”. In this context, leaders view themselves as having a broad scope of powers that include deciding whether or not someone’s confession of faith is legitimate, deciding whether or not someone is fit for the kingdom and ultimately whether or not you or I get in. To see this distorted view in full operation you can read pretty much any blog post at 9Marks but two that stood out to me as being showcases of authoritarian behavior were THIS POST in which Jonathan Leeman postulates that leaders have the exact powers I described above as seen in this statement:

The apostles had heaven’s authority for declaring who on earth is a kingdom citizen and therefore represents heaven.

And also read this disturbing POST by Bobby Jamieson where he postulates that it is a leader’s responsibility to NOT accept a parishioner’s resignation, especially if that parishioner is under discipline but that the leader should put the resignation to a vote of the congregation or at the very least deny the “request”.

Imagine if that were you and you had done something silly like have “impure thoughts” or like the widely publicized Andrew situation, you had kissed a girl. You confessed it to one of your leaders. In turn he tells you that you are under discipline for your “impure behavior” and offers up a discipline contract for you to complete. You realize they are taking this too far and say you want to go elsewhere to worship.

BUT WAIT! YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE!

You are not allowed to leave unless they say you can. So the entire church is given a ballot to decide whether or not you are allowed to leave. I cannot even begin to imagine the humiliation and degradation this would subject someone to. And what is worse is that these men think that if you don’t do what they say, they have the authority to pull your citizenship in Heaven. Not only can you not willingly leave this local church, but if you do we are going to send you to hell for all eternity!

Mature believers are not so naïve and foolish as to buy into this lording over nonsense, but young impressionable men and women would feel a horrible deep agony in this circumstance. My wife and I are mature believers with years of sitting under good, loving, caring leadership (a plurality I might add) and when we were condemned by leaders at Mars Hill and our faith was questioned, (See note above about judging confessions) we were brokenhearted by the whole chain of events and it took my wife months to come to terms with it. Given our maturity and the impact these so-called leaders had on our outlook when attacked, I cannot imagine the impact this would have on much younger, far less mature believers who are taught from the moment they walk through the door to submit to and respect their elders.

It is also important to point out that, young men and women are very much the target audience of the New- Calvinist/ Neo-Reformed movements. These are the movements that are pushing these fundamentalist models with rigid authoritarian leadership styles, membership covenants that demand submission to leaders and evolved disciplinary proceedings for keeping parishioners in line.

This whole idea of leaders as daddy ‘who will spank you if you are naughty’ is based on a fundamental misunderstanding or distortion of God’s word. Make no mistake, it’s believing in a falsehood. Even still men in these neo-reformed movements view themselves as God’s anointed leaders with broad powers over parishioners. Mars Hill, 9Marks, SGM, Gospel Coalition, Acts29 Network, and all their buddies may not overtly announce these ideals as loudly as 9Marks does, but they all operate in a similar fashion even if they haven’t written a white paper stating their position.

Mark Driscoll used to preach a plurality of elders within his church as seen in THIS VIDEO. But in 2007 he decided to change the structure of church leadership at Mars Hill and essentially provided himself with lifelong tenure. He consolidated the number of board votes from 14 (which comprised of the church elders) to 5 of which he and his right and left hand man made up a majority. It has left the elders of that church neutered and without recourse. In his first brutal display of authority to “flex his muscle” if you will, Driscoll fired two of elders who raised concerns over the new structure and refused to abide in it.

At Mars Hill now, if a discerning elders sees something that is disturbing and feels it needs to be brought to the attention of the executive team, he runs the risk of being fired immediately if they don’t like what he has to say. Because the executive staff has essentially unfettered power, anyone who questions Driscoll openly within their own church stands to be excoriated and removed. This change at the end of 2007 is also about the time that Mars Hill exploded in size, and started on a very deliberate campaign to expand its market share. For ten years they comfortably and happily operated in and around the Seattle area. In the last 3 years they have grown 3 times the size and launched churches in 4 states. I will deal with this problem in the Case Against The Growth Movement but will say here that this expansion over the last few years has by and large promoted Mark Driscoll by streaming video of him to 14 sites in 4 states. It has not been about Jesus or even Mars Hill church as the entire consortium of churches is currently doing the REAL MARRIAGE series with Driscoll squeezing in seminars at other churches in between Sundays.

Bill Clem’s latest book received anecdotal mention on the MH website and any other activities done by other pastors at Mars Hill cannot and do not take marketing preference over Driscoll projects. Imagine being a leader in that church that is conflicted about the unabashed marketing and media frenzy and wanting to speak to the issue with senior leadership…. Before the 2007 rewrite of the bylaws you could. Not anymore….. SUBMIT PUNK!

So then what should leadership look like in a church?

The first verse through which we view leadership should always, and I mean ALWAYS, be Mathew 20:25-26 and Mark 10:42-45 because these were Jesus own words on how leaders should behave. It was his personal instruction to the disciples. It wasn’t some cryptic verse that can and has been taken out of context or Paul, a flawed human, postulating about what he thinks. No it is Jesus own words about what a leader WILL be and there is nothing confusing about it.

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant and whoever want to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” - Mark 10:42

And everywhere in Acts and in the Apostolic letters there are mentions of elders in the plural tense at churches and in Peter’s own letter confesses that Jesus is the foundation of the church. Considering that elder/ pastor/ overseer all have the same meaning, this would lead any person obsessed with scriptural precision to believe that a New Testament church based on the disciples of Jesus with Jesus as the foundation would believe in a plurality of elders. And that these elders do not have a broad scope of power and authority but that rather they are to be humble servants of the church. Sadly mankind is not prone to serving others humbly as though a slave. He is prone to seeking adoration, praise, and success, and is given to seeking his own desires over those of his fellow man. In America ,where we are obsessed with consumption and creature comforts the likes of which leave people of other nations aghast, pastors want successful ministry in order to sustain their own lifestyle through the tithes and giving of others. And they are able to do this while maintaining a would be noble status operating as church leader through their “calling”.

Leadership cannot be a one man deal. We cannot let church devolve into little fiefdoms with Driscoll’s and Piper’s and such ruling over their own little flock or giant flock that buys in to their own little theological slant or cultural angle. We must require that as much precision be required in terms of ecclesia as these new-Calvinists seem to require in every other part of doctrine.

Leadership should not be a position of nobility or fame or notoriety on earth, it should be the exact opposite. Those who seek to honor themselves as leaders on Earth will be last in heaven and those who seek to honor others and humbly and selflessly serve others will be raised up.

The new testament model of 12 disciples along with verses in Titus, Peter, Timothy and a host of others should lead us to the conclusion that church leadership should not be one guy. It should be many, and that no one person should be lifted up above others. If one man has a gift of preaching, another of equal stature should have a gift of shepherding and still another should have the gift of teaching. And collectively the older, wiser men and women in a local church should be the ones providing care, counsel, prayer and loving on the younger men and women not the other way around because the younger guy got a degree from Biola University!

We’ve created our own power structure and our own institutions with which to govern church. We’ve built up multi-million dollar private universities where young men and women train to become pastors and elders regardless of whether or not they’ve ever consulted God.

And there is a dangerous part in all of this. As men take crowns of honor and place them on their own heads and call themselves God’s earthly authorities others gladly follow them for their insight and vision…. But what happens when it is shown that these authorities on Earth were Pharisees? What happens to the Pharisees followers?

Humanities future existence in eternity hangs in the balance. And Jesus promised us there would be a surprise ending!

A deconstructionist pastor who views the church as a corporation and rails on it quite regularly went around to a number of pastors with whom he is friends recently and pressed them on the issue of what leaders should be from a purely Biblical perspective.

Many argued that they weren’t authoritarian and had every right to lord it over their flock and demand money, but many others off the record were willing to concede that they were taking money from parishioners when they had no Biblical support for doing so and were asserting themselves as authority over people without any Biblical support but that this authority was necessary part of their ministry. When he asked them why they continued on, they essentially told him that they needed it to stay the way it is so they can continue to make a good living.

So their response could be paraphrased as such: If I run this church the way a New Testament church should look like, I’ll have to get a job.

My prayer is that leaders rise up and drown out the voices of celebrity preachers, charismatic preachers & mega-church preachers and that God would drive ambition and selfishness from the heart of the American church. I pray that strong, courageous, humble, honorable, loving leaders would rise up in God’s church to offer a contrast to our stratified, fractured, tribal, corporate church model. That strong leaders and elders would lock arms and put God’s glory first at the expense of everything else and tamp down the ambitious, power hungry CEO’s that have taken over the church in America.

I pray that a hundred Pauls get blindsided on their way to Damascus. Because Paul was not afraid of a day job, he built tents.

THE CASE AGAINST - PREFACE

2012-02-20T15:40:00.000-08:00

Over the next few weeks I am going to address 4 (maybe 5) of the key problems I see in the modern western Church. Classify it as new-Calvinism, neo-reformed, whatever you like, it’s a systemic problem not merely that of a few rogue churches. Each week I will address a different issue broken down as follows:

1. The Case Against Authority & Hierarchy

2. The Case Against Complimentarianism

3. The Case Against Discipline

4. The Case Against The Church Growth Movement

First let me say that I don’t do this because I have Mars Hill in my cross hairs out of anger, vengeance or bitterness. Many have tried to draw that conclusion from my posts in the comment section especially in regard to my story about my experience at their church last year. I will readily admit that it was a horrible thing to experience at the hand of a church. Seeing how the community group leader, deacon and pastor profoundly harmed my wife, it would be easy for me to go on a tirade or operate out of anger. They damaged and crushed my wife’s view of the church, created a jaded and suspicious spirit in her towards the church and essentially stole the innocence & beauty with which she viewed the church. They cracked her rose colored lenses. I love her deeply and want to comfort her, pray for her and support her as she works through it. I cannot merely pile onto her worries with more questions and concerns. My critique is universal.

The community group leader, deacon and pastor who were all culpable in the spiritual abuse we experienced are forgiven in my world. Mark Driscoll, his authoritarian pack of elders and the young Martians who hang on his every word are forgiven in my world. Not by my power as I am completely capable of holding a grudge for years, and am good at it, but by the power of the Holy Spirit through the perfect work of Jesus. The day the Holy Spirit caused me to forgive I was overtaken by a sorrowful love, not anger, not vengeance, a love anchored in sadness over what had taken place. This fruit of the spirit is love. There is no joy in the circumstances but there is peace. However I am critical, but my critical views are not to tear down or destroy. It is merely a rebuke of people I care for.

The point here is repentance. The church is a dynamic organism, and it is vital to the church’s health that if parts of it are operating out of unbridled ambition, abusive behavior and cultic undertones, they need to be called what they are: unbridled ambition, abusive behavior and cultic undertones. Silence is negligence. The notion that we should just keep quiet so as to not stir up division is absurd. It enables the next person to be abused and the next person with the echo chamber yelling “Be Quiet!” because we would be “tearing down” if we speak. Do you think Jesus would run to the person harmed by the church or would he ignore them because he’s worried about making one of the leaders look bad?

I don’t see these new-Calvinist churches or neo-reformed churches as being inherently evil, but see them as having profound structural and moral deficiencies. Some of these are cultural influence, others are not. If there is string of bad DNA coding in an organism’s genome, it can lead to cancer which will cause terrible harm and even kill the organism. As such I cannot simply keep quiet because we all have to play nice and because these men are popular, or keep quiet because we’ve been doing it this way for a long time.

Neither fear of man nor honoring human tradition are credible excuses for overlooking abuse or ignoring a wayward path. Each generation should not simply build upon the traditions and rituals of their fathers but should look to the Gospels of Jesus Christ and the Bible as the one and only authority on the nature and structure of the church. Reform should be a constant refining just like the sinner is sanctified through the Holy Spirit so should the church be. If the church is on a wayward man made path we shouldn’t be worried about what will happen to the church if we change course, we should be worried about what will happen to the church if we don’t!

We cannot simply say that we are successful or growing or relevant and offer this as merit. If we applied this same metric to men in their walk it would be the “prosperity gospel” which is a false Gospel. So why is it an acceptable metric for the church as a whole if a man cannot use the same argument?

The church cannot simply seek acceptance from culture by conforming to it or seek to assimilate with culture by agreeing with it or seek to keep up with culture by imitating it. The more the church looks like culture, the further the church has moved from its intended purpose.

So the coming critique is not just some purposed lambast of a chosen few leaders who have rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t garner any ill will for them. They are doing the best they can with what they have. I am sure there are those who want to and who need to believe this is the case for the sake of their own hero worship or the comfort of the chair they’ve been sitting in so long. But it doesn’t make it true. My critique is born out of the hope that God is glorified through the church and that the church shines brightly and is worthy of the name the Church of Jesus Christ.

What is true is that churches are focusing a tremendous amount of energy on marketing and growth and are identifying their successes in statistics and finances rather than fruit. They are hollowing out the heart and spirit of the living word of God by focusing far too much on precision of theology and doctrine and not enough on the transformative power found in communicative relationship with God. They are renewing processes through which they can control congregations such as discipline and membership but are not building into these processes protection for parishioners. They are openly demanding submission to leaders without any clear cut and visible process by which leaders are vetted for such a robust scope of power.

And finally the tone and drum beat of sexism grows louder by the day. Using Biblical references born out of antiquated cultural models and historical church practices from centuries marked by oppression, churches are becoming increasing chauvinistic and crude in their mindset regarding women. This trend has not been met with caution and critical views from church leaders rather it seems to be celebrated by even the most unlikely western pillars.

These are not minor problems that we can simply overlook for the sake of peace.

Stay tuned for the Case against Authority & Heirarchy on Thursday.

Good Stuff From Good Pastors - 2/17

2012-02-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

"The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian." - AW Tozer

“One of the most popular current errors, and the one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering religious activity in evangelical circles, is the notion that as times change the church must change with them.” - AW Tozer

Paul the Apostle saw the same thing.

2-Timothy 4:3 " For a time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

Mars Hill, Career Spirituality & Other Cynical Nonsense

2012-02-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

The Good News today is that I am saved by grace just like everyone else who has allowed the Gospels to penetrate their heart, and recognize, appreciate and worship Jesus and his perfect work. Today is a new day for a new creation with new blessings. We are all lucky to be alive and lucky to have the chance to fall down and worship at the feet of the Most High God.

A couple few weeks ago my wife and I released our viewpoint on authoritarian/ controlling behavior that we experienced at a Mars Hill church plant and the structural problems we witnessed that led to our leaving. We are overjoyed that some have found affirmation in our words, that we were able to help some people recognize things that were grieving them, validate people who felt crazy after leaving or having doubts and strengthen people in the body of Christ who were essentially run roughshod over by a church so focused on growth, success and relevancy that it can’t even admit or acknowledge that it’s trampling on people. Sometimes I think the reason they won’t or can’t apologize is because it is premeditated. But that is neither here nor there.

I stand by my critique. I think pride and ambition are driving the unprecedented growth at Mars Hill, not necessarily God’s anointing. By the same logic you could say Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian are anointed by God because of their surging popularity, wealth and success. I don’t think anyone is trying to draw that parallel. Yet we often attach ministry success to blessing or anointing. I don’t buy that in most cases. And I won’t completely let it go because it is something I was shown by the Holy Spirit and take that to mean I shouldn’t ignore it because it makes some uncomfortable or unhappy. I believe the most obvious and telling evidence is that Mark Driscoll is being broadcast at 15 churches/ campuses in 4 states. This is not because they don’t have other good preachers, they have at least 2 that I have been witness to. It is because Driscoll is will provide the highest market share and will pack the house, plain and simple.

CORRECTIONS & RETRACTIONS! "....is being broadcast at 14 churches/ campuses in 4 states.

When we were at the MH church plant we were attending, the one time in the first six months that Driscoll showed up, the crowd tripled in size, but the following week it reverted back to under 200 regular attendees. I think there is a trend in this would be neo-reformed movement, or over-emphasis rather, on a good preacher being a necessary component to ministry success and likewise the metric by which success is measured being growth.

I also stand by the critique that the church body that I came in contact with, was lifting up Mark Driscoll to idolatrous levels. The knee jerk reaction is to say it’s not his fault that people have created a cult of personality around him… and there may be some validity to that claim, some but not all. Because he’s also not taking any steps whatsoever to tamp it out either. And just last week he reclaimed the title of president at Acts29 Network and in turn issued a manifesto or vision for their future more concerned with pushing content, new logos, viral marketing, better websites, winning the air war, events, growth, growth, success and more growth, than with invoking a spirit and mindset of worship towards God…. He did make a curious comment or little Freudian slip in his announcement on Acts29 that he envisions ‘1000 US Churches RUNNING 500,000 people by 2016'. I have to wonder how a person trying to live a gospel centered life modeled after Jesus Christ views their role in the church body as “running people”… but hey I may just be a cynical prick too.

I have a hard time believing he’s just a victim of circumstance and unwarranted fanaticism within his own church. Or that I witnessed a random eruption of a few rotten seeds. The promotion is purposeful and deliberate with the intent of increasing Mark Driscoll’s profile regardless of whether or not it yields a healthy body of believers or whether the natural outflow of that is that the Good news gets preached to more people. The churches being planted are typically planted in towns, cities, and counties with dozens and dozens of local churches as well as a megachurch here or there. I’d argue that they aren’t taking the Gospel to new places, just trying to gain “market share” in new areas of influence (for Mars Hill) where they can leverage their celebrity preacher's popularity into a rapidly expanding and successful congregation, likely at the expense of other regional churches. But hey, those other Churches don't have a clue.... they are filled with a bunch of sleepy Christians, lukewarm Christians and phony cultural Christians who are merely fluent in Christianese and like the label. That was the story we got.

It’s worth noting that in 6 or 7 months at the plant I was at, I didn’t meet anyone who was a recent convert, they were virtually all people who left another local church to be a part of Mars Hill. This is also why I was disappointed when Mars Hill started stoking everyone’s ambition with promises of future pasturing and elder positions for core group members. People left church families that they had invested years in and were now as much a part of a start-up company that they were getting in on the ground floor with before it went public as they were a family of believers who assembled corporately to worship God and hear the word preached. The posturing between people vying for face time with the pastors, deacons and inner circle members became a bit grotesque, especially when contrasted against the motionless, solemn, still, demeanor of the congregation during our Sunday time of “worship”.

The good news in all of this is that God is sitting on a throne at the center of the Universe in some separate but near dimension being worshipped by 10,000 x 10,000 angels and every living creature in said universe is and or will someday bow down in worship to God. God is an all-powerful, all knowing Holy Holy Holy being who does not need Mark Driscoll to accomplish his mission anymore than he needs me to protect him and his glory from would be charlatans.

We are all lucky to be allowed to worship him. We are all lucky that we are allowed to worship him here in America without persecution in our nice new buildings with our amplified instruments on our big sound stages and our big screen video monitors and our choice of professionally trained preachers….. There are people in many countries in this world where people walk five miles along dirt roads to meet with others in a small little adobe hut to worship The Father, Son and Holy Ghost and hear the word preached by maybe the only man in town who can read or the only person in town who was able to get his hands on a Bible. And these same people face persecution and death for coming together if other dominant religious or political groups find out …. They do it because they are compelled in their heart to worship God with abandon… recklessly putting it all on the line for Jesus. They want to devote their life to him…. And he is most certainly there in their midst.

Can we say the same about the church in America? Sometimes I am not so sure.

I would definitely like to see more “leaders” in the Western church who are dragged kicking and screaming into ministry against their own will because God has put a calling on them. I’d like to see more leaders who are heading to Damascus with orders to imprison but are overwhelmed by and fall in love with Jesus. A few more ‘Pauls’ would be a good thing.

These days kids realize they have a ‘calling’ or ‘hear God’ after they get saved and go off to college for training and then seminary for master training and then take entry level positions as youth pastors or college or high school pastors the same way any other person would work towards becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer or architect or web developer…. All the while hoping to one day get make it to lead pastor, or preaching pastor, or executive pastor, or church planter aka make partner or division manager or VP or start their own practice.

God’s chosen people, crying out in a chorus of worship towards an all knowing, all powerful Holy entity that spoke the universe into existence and the architect behind all creation who has always been and who always will be, forever and ever and ever should not be reduced to a career path for young aspiring men.

But that is exactly what we’ve made it here in America. Some would call my slant deconstructionism, but I think its reconstructionism…. I don’t want to tear it down. It just needs to be rebuilt. But I suppose any new ecclesia model could be just as easily hijacked by ambitious men with selfish intentions and create exactly what we have right now or worse I suppose.

But if you were raised all alone on a desert island and grew up reading the gospels over and over and over and then were rescued and brought to America after 30 years. And you got to America and were excited to go to a “church” and show up on Sunday at Anywhere USA, with just the Gospels as a guide, for your entire life, does the American Church or it’s would be modern pillars i.e. Driscoll, Piper, Keller, DA Carson, Rob Bell, RC Sproul etc…..etc… make any sort of sense whatsoever?

What does a church that is truly fashioned upon the Gospels look like? It is one of the most important questions we should be asking ourselves. Not what does Mark, or John or Tim or whoever says it should look like. But what do the Gospels write on our hearts and instruct our minds about what a church should look like when we read them, cover to cover.

Those that start asking this question too loud often get marginalized….. But it still needs to be asked….. Jesus was marginalized so it is good company.

Good Stuff From Good Pastors

2012-02-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

"On my good days….I wake up, I have a half hour time withJesus, his praises are on my lips all day, I’m praising my enemy , somebody cutsme off in traffic I literally pray God’s blessing over them….I have my gooddays….

And then I have my bad days, where I get up late… wifey’s alittle mad at me so I get right back mad at her…I go through my day and I justreturn evil for evil you know if somebody insults me I insult them back, ifsomebody is critical of me, I’m critical of them back… So you have good daysyou have bad days.

My temptation is to think that on my good days I’m morefavorable before God. And I wanna tell you the fact that we even think in gooddays and bad days nullifies the power of the cross.

Because HIS sacrifice, HIS righteousness, HIS glory is allthat matters in God’s sight.

Are we judged by what we do? Are we accountable for what wedo in the body? Absolutely… this is about who gets in!.... and so you and I keepscore.

So we’re trying to keep score with someone who stoppedcounting. That’s what GRACE Means!"

Pastor Mike Erre - Author of "Jesus of Suburbia" & "Death by Church"

TOMCZAK FAMILY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST MAHANEY

2012-02-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is a very good, very well thought through, very strong post by Larry and Doris Tomczak in response to Sovereign Grace Ministry reinstating CJ Mahaney as President after an "Independent" Review Board (Members of SGM) issued their final report stating CJ was "Fit For Leadership"

CJ who Mark Driscoll sites as one of the three or four men he is "accountable" to was recently forced to step down in light of charges brought against him by long time SGM leader Brent Detwiler.
The Tomczak story showcases the meat grinder of church politics and what happens when you have a multi-million dollar ministry and what "pastors" will do to protect it. CJ was accused of and admitted to blackmailing the Tomczaks with public disclosure of sins their child had confessed to Mahaney in private counsel.

They tell it better than I do READ IT HERE

Servant Leader or Serve your Leader?

2012-02-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

In recent days there has been a lot of talk about leadership, abuse of leadership, church discipline and the roll that a church has and its biblical authority in people’s lives and in their sin. I’ve seen a lot of people trying to justify some of the things done, and I’ve seen a lot of people fumbling through their bible to find a verse that supports the argument Mars Hill has presented in response to Andrew’s Story.

This is all coming to head because people are rushing to step forward with stories of abuse both mild and grotesque at Mars Hill church. Mars Hill is based in the greater Seattle metro area with satellite “Churches” in New Mexico, Portland and Orange County. It now boasts a corporate congregation of over ten thousand people and is growing a rapid clip. In the past two weeks since I released my story which pales in comparison to others, I have received probably 20 emails from people who have had similar to far worse experiences there.

Our experience in Mars Hill was one where we felt the spiritual underpinnings of the church were a little “off” and felt the ecclesiastical structure of the church was set up in a dangerous way. Before we received the scorched earth message from our CG leader, condemning us and insulting us for not consulting or submitting to his will before we left, if you had asked us what our biggest concerns were, we probably would have said that the church is structured poorly and has a propensity for abuse by its leaders. Our concerns were that the membership covenant was lopsided, demanding submission to leadership without recourse for the flock. There seemed to be a distinct hierarchy of leaders who were beholden unto themselves and loyal unto themselves. This pyramid structure (with Driscoll at the top) meant if you disagreed with something a CG was doing or saying, you had no one from campus deacon or elder to executive pastors with whom you felt safe sharing it.

The propensity for abuse was too great, and our lack of confidence in our CG leaders among other things led us to believe it was a dangerous place to sign a contract indemnifying and holding harmless a group of men who could not be held accountable otherwise. So we left and were attacked and shunned for leaving.

That being said, when I saw what Mars Hill released the other day in response to multiple stories of spiritual abuse, and when I read all the blog posts and comments of people questioning the victims character and citing scriptural support for Mars Hills actions….. I was dumbfounded.

Are we so in love with our pop cultural icons, celebrity pastors and “cultural relevancy” that we can’t see pas t the end of our own noses? We can’t admit when a man, no matter how famous, or how many books he has sold, or how quickly his church is growing, has twisted the purpose, calling and authority of the church to suit his own IDEALS and IDEAS? Are we so beholden to “Church” culture and “REFORMED THEOLOGY”, and the National Christian Scene that we can’t admit that a pastor is using exegetical BS concordance searches to twist the meaning of God’s word? Is an out of control ministry really going to fool the Christian population and its leadership with its own ideas because we cannot understand the overarching theme of the Bible? LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR & YOUR ENEMY

What Mars Hill did by re-releasing the chapter on “Church Discipline” in response to Andrew’s Story was essentially say that even though these people have been horribly hurt, some have been so hurt in fact that they have given up their faith both in the God and the church, that it’s really their own fault for being so stubborn and not accepting the wrath and punishment that Jesus wants Mars Hill to bring down on them for him.

What other church appointed men to act as intermediaries between God and people?

That’s right, the Catholic Church….. So now every day the “Emerging Reformers” are looking more and more like the church they swear to detest for its traditions and rites of men. It’s either irony or the fact that men will always through their own sinful pride and ambition seek to control others. The history of world religion is a case study on this subject.

But our responsibility isn’t and our desire shouldn’t as believers be to protect the Christian celebrities we’ve propped up as idols (literally) and their multi-million dollar ministries. Instead it should be to rally to the hurting, the abused, the weary, the broken and the lost that have been trampled under the machine of Mars Hill and the American Corporate Church. We are so sucked in by the prestige of men like Piper, Keller and Driscoll that we’ll forfeit real fellowship and care with someone who is broken and needy for the sake of appeasing our National Church Pillars. If we seek to protect an elite pastor twisted with ambition, money, ratings, air time, book deals etc…… then we are no better than the world. What else is new?

INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON MATHEW 18:17

MARS HILL SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON MATHEW 20:25-26

ON SERVANT LEADERSHIP
MATHEW 20:24-28 ‘But Jesus called them together and said “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. BUT AMONG YOU IT WILL BE DIFFERENT. WHOEVER WANT S TO BE A LEADER AMONG YOU MUST BE YOUR SERVANT AND WHOEVER WANTS TO BE FIRST AMONG YOU MUST BECOME YOUR SLAVE. FOR EVEN THE SON OF MAN CAME NOT TO BE SERVED BUT TO SERVE OTHERS AND GIVE HIS LIFE AS A RANSOM FOR MANY.”

Nuff Said

Good Stuff From Good Pastors

2012-01-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

My Type of Calvinism

"If you are just testing theology, demons have good theology, they had the right answers about who Jesus was (Mark 5:6). I'm convinced the American church has convinced us that to believe means you memorize a creed, you recite the right answers, you intellectually agree with the right information about Jesus, but if that's all believing is then demons believe too. I want to suggest that the right answers are necessary but they are only the beginning of the journey.... so we love arguing, we love denominationalizing, we love theological hair splitting... and how many of us obey the simple command 'love your neighbor as yourself'... let's start with that one...how about 'love your enemies'? I mean lets get that one down and then we can argue about predestination."
- Pastor Mike Erre (Author of The Jesus of Suburbia)

"Predestination was never meant to be a doctrinal club used to batter people into acknowledgement of God's sovereignty. Rather the message of God's love preceding our accomplishments and outlasting our failures was meant to give us a profound sense of confidence and security in God's love so that we will not despair in situations of greater difficulty, pain and shame."
- Pastor Britt Merrick (Author of 'Big God')

Authoritarian Church Quiz.... OUCH!

2012-01-29T22:44:00.000-08:00

This is a questionnaireI found to test church structure and behavior to verify if the church isoperating in a authoritarian way or “cult like” manner. I don’t like throwingthat word around too much but believe at this point that it has a valid place in the debate. I did it based on my experience at Mars Hill.

You are definitely in an unhealthy church environment and need to leave if you answer 4 or more of these questions in the affirmative. I had 13 plus 2 partial for total score of 15.

I don't know that there is a lot of weight to this questionnaire, but think these are questions people should ask themselves, and consider the implications if there is an affirmative answer. Especially as it relates to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Does it mean your church is a cult, not necessarily but I think is at the very least a sign that a church has a definite propensity for abuse. And the fact that these churches do these things should be cause for alarm and compel people to reference the word of God.

That being said, here's the questionnaire and my responses below.

SUPER APOSTLE QUESTIONNAIRE.

· (0) Does your Pastor claim to have an 'Apostolic Mandate'? Not that I haveheard

· (0) Does your Pastor claim to be an Apostle? No, I haven't heard those words used.

· (0) Has your Pastor used the term 'Apostolic Authority'? No.

· (1) Is there a perception in your church that your leader'spronouncements come directly from God? Absolutely. I’ve heard multiplemembers of CG say “he hears God!”

· (1) Do you spend more time studying your leader's teachings than studyingthe Bible by itself (without reference to your leader's teachings)? YES, the Bible is onlymentioned in reference to Driscoll’s teachibgs

· (1) Is your tithing recorded so leaders can monitor your giving? YES! And they sit youdown for a talking to when you are doing poorly.

· (0) Does your leadership constantly put a great deal of pressure onchurch members to tithe? Do they always seem to be going on about it? Not really, except atChristmas time, they were asking for 6.2 million for 4 church plants…. At atime when most charities for the needy to make most of the money they will operate on for the rest of theyear

· (0) Does your leadership pressure the church to give special offerings,and rebuke the congregation if they do not meet the set targets? Yes, my last visit to thesanctuary they told the congregation specifically that “YOU’RE GIVING SUCKS.” Andproceeded to talk about it like we were the most selfish, greedy group ofpeople they had ever seen

· (0) Are the rich treated any differently from the average folk in yourchurch? No

· (0) Are you always being encouraged to go to expensive conferences?No, but I am sure theREAL MARRIAGE SEMINARS are going to cost a pretty penny

· (1) If you thought your leader had taught something unscriptural, wouldyou be very scared to approach him regarding your concern? I’ve been rebuked forasking questions but don’t think I could ever get an audience with my oldteaching “Pastor”.

· (1) Are you encouraged or commanded not to see ex-members of your church?Never got to be a part ofa good ol fashion shunning but was the receiver of it!

· (1) Is it implied that your church, or group of churches, are the onlychurch(es) really following God in your country? Yes, other churches inthe area are filled with “sleepy” Christians and “consumer Christians” and are “seekersensitive”… We are Doctrinal rock solid so we can’t be missing it.

· (1) Is it implied that to leave your church for another church is toautomatically disobey God's will for your life? We were told we “might”be going against God’s will for our family and “IF SO” then we were endangeringourselves, our family and “The Church”

· (.5) Are you taught that you must obey your leaders in your personallives; Theyexpected me to “repent” of smoking which meant I had to “turn away from it” andthey expected us to debrief them and seek their counsel when we decided we weregoing to leave.

· (0) Does your church preach a 'prosperity' message, constantly equatingGod's blessing with monetary blessing? No, they HATE theprosperity Gospel.

· (1) Do your leaders teach that you cannot be involved in any Christianevents or ministries outside of your local church? Yes, it’s a part of themembership covenant.

· (1) Have you signed anything saying you will tithe to the church, obeyits leaders, and never criticize the church? No, I never signedthe membership covenant but would berequired to.

· (0.25) Can you pay money and become part of your leader's network?No but it is understoodthat good, faithful givers who are members will receive favor and advancementinto leadership quickly.

· (0) Do your leaders think highly of Peter Wagner's book 'Church Quake'?No??

· (0.5) Have you been taught that God speaks only to your leader, and youonly hear from God via your leader? Sort of, the statement of faith states thatjust because a person seems to operate in gifts and seems to have fruit of thespirit, this doesn’t mean they are leading a spirit filled life.

· (0) Have you been ordered not to read 'negative' information about yourchurch; information like what Cultwatch.com provides? No

· (1) Have you heard the term 'Church Government' mentioned? It’s mentioned in the “ChurchDiscipline” excerpt from Marks Book they issued the other day

· (0) Have your leaders told you that the church is a 'theocracy, not ademocracy'? No.

· (0) Are you expected to wear the latest fashionable clothes to church, anddo other things to make the church appear affluent? No

· (0) Do you hear little Scripture in your leaders sermons? No,

· (1) Have you been told you are not allowed to criticize your leader?Yes, but in not so manywords

· (.75) Has anyone told you that if you disobey your leaders then you willno longer be under their 'Umbrella of Divine Protection'? Yes, but the term theyused was “endangering our family”… and “isolation from God’s people.”

· (1) Has anyone told you thatterrible things will happen to you if you leave? Yes, they said we wereendangering ourselves, the church, and our family and would be isolated fromGod’s people…. Then asked how I could lead my family with being accountable tomy brothers at Mars Hill.

· (1) Have you been told that if you disobey, or leave, you will lose God'sblessing in your life? See answers to above two questions

Washing Feet, Not Hands

2012-01-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

Over the course of the past few days we've seen some remarkable goings on with Mars Hill. They responded to the allegations of spiritual abuse by 'Andrew' with no sign of remorse, instead some hapless Pastor in Seattle who probably had nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding Andrew, had to be the one who put his name on a press release or boilerplate statement regarding it being "confidential" church stuff and proceded to give us all a lecture by attaching Driscoll's chapter on discipline from his Vintage Church book.

I do think it was poor taste to not own their mistakes, acknowledge they overstepped some boundaries and let people know they are going to try to find solutions. A church and a leader can usually bump their heads on a few things along the way if they exhibit remorse and a willingness to change. I wasn't a part of Mars Hill for very long so don't claim to know where the bodies are buried or know these elders very well but it doesn't strike me as a group of men who submit to demands from the flock when they've blown it. Just my read.

The truth is, that a young man did something that hurt his girlfriend terribly. Her dad used his authority as a church elder to exact vengeance and make the kids life miserable. He distorted the words of Jesus Christ himself to exact that toll. Don't get me wrong I get a dad wanting to protect his daughter, and the anger that must well up when you see your daughter deeply hurt. But in that regard, do it as a man and not as a church elder. If he stood to be your son-in-law then you can take your elder hat off, act as the father and give the punk kid who hurt your daughter, a talking to.... but do not abuse the position that a church has given you inflict your own personal vendetta (justified or not) on a kid who really showed a decent amount of character offering up his sin when just about no one would have been any the wiser had he kept his mouth shut.

Jesus line in the sand really has some weight to it here. Anyone who lived a perfect sexually upright life when they were single.... go ahead and throw stones.... but based on his book, not even the Driscoll family has grounds to do that.

But in our situation, we simply didn't want to attend anymore. They probably could glean from our last interactions that we had disagreements with the way they did things but we did not voice these to either them or anyone else involved.... However we got the same abuse. An elder who felt he had the right and authority to tell us what we could or couldn't do, demand a meeting with us so he could tell us if he thought we were right and when we wouldn't talk about why were we breaking up with Mars Hill, proceeded to tell us how lousy and terrible we were, how horrible he thought we were being and broke up with us! It was a strange few weeks when that all went down. The hurt I felt was small compared to my wife and in my heart of hearts if I had stumbled across that elder on the street, I would not have been as kind as I was in emails and phone calls. If he had played his cards poorly I could see where I could've, and justifiably so, extracted payment physically from him. Luckily that didn't happen.

So today is the Lord's day and God gave me John 13:12 -17. And having thought about it I have learned how to love that leader from afar. He is not one that I can appreciate up close, but from afar I can pray for him, his wife and his beautiful little kids. I appreciated, care for and loved everybody that I met at that church.... They were all terribly flawed people who lacked in many areas but I found amazing things in all of them.... and although Driscoll seems to be a pompous, arrogant, misogynistic prick with a superiority complex (or inferiority depending on how you view psychology) and has made some terrible mistakes in the structure of his church.... the one above one, pyramid design to leadership, the lack of any sort of line of recourse for the flock against leadership among others things..... I think my point is that Driscoll is operating out of a prideful arrogant heart..... but not one of an unbeliever..... I do believe that there are probably more instances where leaders in that church need to repent than the flock right now considering the abuses I've read in the public square and in the many private stories people have shared with me in the past week, but my hope is that they have "true repentance".... not that they are destroyed.

If it is God's will that I help in "raising their bottom" so the point of no return for Driscoll and his team comes sooner than later.....then I will help as best I can.... and if it is God's will that I learn from this, and appreciate what I have and how lucky I have been to be at ministries like the one I came from, and leave Mars Hill unto itself for God to deal with, then I will follow God's will.

My lesson today is that I cannot simply look at people trapped in the system and characterize them all as either wicked or stupid..... I must wash their feet, serve them as I can..... If that is simply that I hit my knees for them as often as I can, then so be it. Especially since it is hard to serve people who are shunning you.

But it is not my mission to come against an organization simply because what they are doing is wrong...... by that token I would be busy with a lot of different organizations.

My job is to love, and learn and serve..... and enjoy the day the Lord has given me..... Servant leadership should be heavy of service and short of leading and with all the gossipy angles this story has taken over the last week, I need to submit myself to serving for a while.....

May the joy and freedom of the Lord be with you,

UNReformed

Mars Hill Discipline Contract Exposes Spiritual Abuse

2012-01-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

Matthew Paul Turner has posted a gut wrenching story of young man named Andrew who after serving as an active member at Mars Hill's Ballard campus for over two years, went to members of his community group without provocation and confessed sin he had engaged in with a girl at college.

What ensues is the worst type of spiritual abuse, being done in the name of Jesus by elders at the main campus in Ballard, WA where Mark Driscoll preaches and tapes his video sermons every week.

This isn't some fringe group in the deserts of Utah or some whacked out fundamentalist group stockpiling weapons in the mountains. This is a church with leaders presiding over one of the largest church planting networks in the country (ACTS29). And who's leader is regularly asked to be a key speaker at church leadership events such as the Gospel Coalition, Desiring God Conference, and the Elephant Room. He is also engaging hundreds if not thousands of young up and coming pastors through his own "RE." branded national speaking tour.

Mars Hill uses Mathew 18 as the basis for their discipline.

Mathew 18:15-17
"If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. IF THE OTHER PERSON LISTENS AND CONFESSES IT, YOU HAVE WON THEM BACK. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or corrupt tax collector."

Andrew confessed his sin, but Mars Hill leadership used God's own words like a cudgel to beat him with, establish themselves as judges over his repentant heart and establishing themselves as the agent through which he must receive forgiveness and reconciliation.

It makes my stomach turn.

CHECK OUT THE STORY HERE
Mark Driscoll - Church Discipline Contract - Part 1
Mark Driscoll - Gospel Shaming - Part 2

RE.GENERATION - My Experience Inside The Cult of Mars Hill

2012-01-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

First I want to say that I have tried to think through this for a long time before I share my experience so that I was level headed and did not go on some furious witch hunt (since there are plenty doing that!) and so that my heart was right when I wrote this. Having given it a couple months to settle, and with what I believe to be 20/20 hindsight on the subject…. I now am comfortable sharing my ground floor opinion as to why I think that Mark Driscoll could be operating as a super apostle in an authoritarian church and why his church, Mars Hill is best appreciated from a distance.

To qualify my statements so no one thinks I am drawing conclusions from the outside looking in, I was one of maybe 60 or 70 people that showed up in the first 2 or 3 weeks after Mars Hill began holding core group sessions for one of their recent church plants. I was relocating from another area because of my job, where I had spent 5 wonderful years sitting under the teaching of a wonderful Pastor who taught us Biblically sound doctrine, theology etc…. but more importantly in whom you could see the a deep rooted love for Jesus emanating. I grew tremendously during that time in maturity and faith. I knew many with troubled pasts (including myself) who found healing, and who were living examples of God’s power through the amazing transformations taking place in their lives at this church. I say this so people understand that I know what good ministry looks like.

That being said, when I left I thought I was walking into something similar with a slightly different feel to it at Mars Hill. Mars Hill was heralded for its sharp, crunchy, orthodox theology, its zealous approach to the sanctity of doctrine and its national reputation for being socially relevant in an era when most churches are losing influence with each passing generation.

I was initially enthusiastic about the constant stream of orthodox exposition within the church and found myself in the first weeks feeling very comfortable with the changes. This would eventually begin to wear on me as the doctrine never seemed to give way to love, mercy or grace. The orthodox theology never gave way to freedom or transformation. It seemed mired in a hard loop rotating back around the same orthodox doctrine as the key to salvation with Driscoll dictating the conversation at all levels.

Worship at Mars Hill was heavy and somber. The worship team opted to sing Mars Hill copyrighted songs and old heavy hymns that felt neither celebratory nor done in a spirit of worship. It was the first time in years where I felt like we just waited through a couple songs to get to the good stuff… Driscoll videos! What I was used to was being in a room full of people with a heart of worship, feeling the power of the Holy Spirit manifest in the room and with 1000 other voices singing a love song to God. There was none of that here.

About two months in, Pastor Mark came down to hold what they were calling a “vision casting” for the local church. Driscoll discussed the future of Mars Hill and how they wanted to raise up 50 leaders to lead 50 churches. They wanted dozens of Driscolls leading an army of God. It was a strong statement, but I felt the Holy Spirit sharpen my focus on that statement. It caused an uneasy feeling. I didn’t know why but did take notice. A day or two later I also felt the Holy Spirit direct me completely independently to the fact that this Mars Hill church plant that I was a part of could draw certain distinctions from the campuses up in Seattle because it was in fact a “church” plant and not a new campus. I had no clue why I was shown this or for what purpose but again, I took note. This was right after the first Driscoll visit.

As the weeks went on, Mars Hill began holding community groups. My wife and I made it a point to attend the week we were fully relocated since we were new to the area and felt that a group of close friends was going to be easiest to find within the Church body. We began attending CG with _____who was the third member of the church planting team that made the trip from the home church.

At the first community group, we were a little disheartened. It seemed more like a theological debating session. I coined the term “Doctrinal swordplay” with my wife to describe what seemed to be guys in the group trying to “one up” each other with the studied gravity of their positions. I was as guilty of this as anyone in the first couple weeks as I loved debate (Heck I still do!) but also contrasted that my points and my wife's points were trying to bring us back to the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Everyone else was espousing ideas about ‘reformed this and reformed that’ ‘Calvin this and Calvin that’ and a lot of talk about the “elect” and the purity of the ESV compared to other translations. I was kinda dumbfounded by it all.

As the weeks went on, some things started to bother me about the tone of our discussions. They were written in my notebook paraphrased here:

Holy Spirit is never mentioned. We’ve only opened our Bibles twice as a group. We’re always talking about things Driscoll said and never about the word of God.
ESV is promoted heavily. Deacon is promoting ESV as the “church’s translation”. It is to the point where I am suspicious. Over using the “Elect” of God. Prayers are framed to be true to Calvinist point of view. We don’t pray for sinners or the lost, we pray that God would lead us to the Elect and equip us to bring the gospel to them. I guess we want economy of mission.
Over emphasis on Calvinism and “Reformed Theology” and no focus on Jesus, the power available in the Holy Spirit today and a communicative, relational faith.
Deacon is very young and lacks strong leadership skills. Shows overt favoritism to members who are similar aka (young, white and Christian College educated). Seems insecure and competitive.
Everyone talks about Driscoll like he’s a genius “He hears God!” I’ve heard “genius” invoked too many times. I have heard God speak to me multiple times near what you would call an audible tone but don’t think this extraordinary in my faith which is relational and communicative with God. I find it extraordinary that the people in this group do.
Over emphasis on complimentary roles. My wife and I already operate in traditional roles because we lead spirit filled lives and the Holy Spirit ministers this to us individually. Mutual submission unto each other…. Mars Hill seems to beat us over the head with it and the message quietly seems to be for women to “know their place”.

After going for about three or four months, a younger couple that had grown in favor with our young spiritual leader, were sharing. The young man was constantly identifying himself as "Ultra-reformed"and they were talking about setting their minds on God and when we brought up the Holy Spirit they spoke of him as a source of conviction and how he lets them know when they are doing wrong.

To me, the Holy Spirit is not an extension of my conscience. The moral law exists in me through God’s design but the Holy Spirit isn’t just a readily available judge to let me know when I’ve done wrong. He empowers, transforms, strengthens, ministers, comforts AND convicts us of sin. All my wife and I heard from this young couple was legalistic bondage and shame. We shared our heart with the group that there is a transforming power to the Holy Spirit and that this same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, the very same spirit that was him and with him when he was resurrected two thousand years ago, exists in us, and is available for us today. We live in a time of the Holy Spirits earthly ministry and he has the power to transforms us, empower us, strengthen us, change us and guide us. The entire group seemed shell shocked by the statement as though it was a foreign concept to them. But we felt we had invited the Spirit into the conversation and the mood in the room changed immediately. The forced discussion gave way to a relaxed conversation among the group.

Later when the men were alone, the same young 'ultra-reformed' guy who was enjoying good favor with the deacon shared his recent experiences with the Holy Spirit since we were now on the topic and he wanted to establish his masterful understanding on the subject (AKA brandish his sword). He used imagery of warfare and torture and specifically likened the work the Holy Spirit was doing in him to ‘tearing his fingernails from his fingers by the root, one by one”. I was immediately alarmed when I heard this and thought this isn't the Holy Spirit! But no one seemed phased by the statement, and later that night we were informed that the same youngster would be the next community group leader. It was odd that we had 3 or 4 couples into their late 30’s possibly one in their 40’s and our early 20’s leader chose another 20 something to be the next leader. I initially thought this might just be cronyism or favoritism, but today I believe that younger, people are sought for leadership positions at Mars Hill because they will do the churches bidding.

Over the next few weeks a few things came to pass. One was that the main campus leadership announced that they would be re-naming all the Seattle campuses “Churches” since there was no mention of a campus in the Bible among other things….. My mind was immediately taken back to the vision casting months ago when God purposed to show me the distinction. This was the first real red flag that I noted, with nothing other than the Holy Spirits direction, I was seeing that there was something deliberate in the actions the church was taking and that they were not necessarily God’s will. Shortly thereafter we were told that our local Pastors would not be preaching anymore except in an auxiliary role and that we would be on the same video feed as the churches in Seattle being fed Mark Driscoll videos.

This was without a doubt in my mind the reason they changed the names from campuses to churches in Seattle, to wipe away any distinction between Seattle area campuses and churches in other states and was obviously why the Holy Spirit showed this to me. It was also in conflict with the statement at the vision casting that they wanted 50 Mark Driscolls to be raised up.

We were, up until this point, happy with the local pastor’s teaching and were content with and expecting him to preach at this new “CHURCH”. There was nothing abnormal about Driscoll being broadcast in and around Seattle, because they were all campuses connected to one regional “Main campus” in Ballard and that is usually how I have known campuses work in churches. But it is a tall order to plant churches 1000, 1200 and 400 miles away and try to call them “campuses” so that you can offer Driscoll by video feed. So instead eliminate “campus” from the lexicon and the distinction disappears.

So were we trying to plant a new church or simply expand Mark Driscoll’s influence? Why else would a church planting movement want only one man being streamed to campuses in 4 states at more than a dozen sites? There are no other church planting movements that I know of that work like this. At every location the local pastor is the preacher. Church planting movements send pastors out to unchartered areas to plant churches and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. They are 100% autonomous and do not simply stake a claim in a new region only to then patch in video of the teaching pastor at the mother ship church 1000 or 2000 miles away. The local/ regional context of subject matter becomes defunct. How can a man preaching in Seattle know and speak to the spiritual battles and cultural problems in New Mexico, Orange County and Portland from Seattle without then ignoring the issues facing people in Seattle?

At the end of services the local pastor would always say something to contextualize the latest Driscoll video and would always say something that I would sense a problem with. Once I pretty much felt the Holy Spirit yell in my ear that this was wrong. A few that I wrote down are listed here.

"God is on mission, we are joining him on that mission"- No, the work of the cross is complete. Christ HAS conquered, he is not actively seeking victory?
"Anyone who's ever been born again, has had someone in their life evangelize them." Not True. God sought me out and called me, not some evangelist. Most secular people don't need to be evangelized regarding who Jesus is, his name and character are pretty well known these days.
"Unbelievers are outside of God's love." The prodigal son, the lost sheep? God does not love the unbeliever? He created a world of beauty and wonder for them to live in!
And Driscoll's Doctrine series episode on the Trinity bothered me. He used an odd text to establish OT evidence of the Trinity, misrepresented the depth and intensity of Augustine of Hippo's research and I just don't think the Trinity is as "matter of fact" as he states. I believe in the Trinity don't get me wrong but know it's our best guess but still truly a mystery.

When I mentioned some pensiveness about the "God as missionary" concept at CG, it was met with a sharp rebuttal by the CG leader. But two others chimed in saying the idea did not sit right with them either. None of us were saying the pastor was wrong, or our CG leader was wrong for reinforcing it. We just had some nagging doubts. Instead of opening it up for discussion among the group, the CG, visibly irritated, and shaking very sharply said "WHAT DOES IT SAY IN THE BIBLE HUH? WHAT DOES IT SAY?" I was taken back by his reaction, everyone let it go. Was it fear.... I guess. I never mentioned any of the other items on the list because of this reaction, and it was pretty rare for anyone to question anything the pastors said at service, from that point on.

Then the church plant started talking about their plan for the area. They wanted twenty Mars Hill Churches, 500 community groups and 100 Acts29 Network churches planted in the region and said that “those churches are going to come out of this room…. Want to be a pastor? We’ll train you.” I hoped I wouldn’t see my CG group go bananas about this but when we were asked what we liked about service, no one mentioned the message, the subject matter, Jesus, or God. All anyone mentioned was 20 churches and 500 community groups and that it was going to be US leading those churches. The effect was obvious. This was no longer a church where we could grow into a deep rich spiritual relationship with God. This was a start- up company where we could fill key roles of leadership early and get on the fast track to achieving our own ministry ambitions. They were seeing themselves as Mars Hill pastors, Deacons and Elders and we hadn’t even found a building. The pastors brought up the growth plan at the end of every service and discussed all of MH branded programs to make us all leaders in Driscoll’s army…. ReTrain, ReLearn, Re.Lit, Re.deemed...Re:tarded!

I didn’t say anything out loud to my wife about my concerns because I knew she was enjoying the community of women. We had moved only a few months ago and yet she had a tight knit group of ready- made friends from church that she spent most days with.

This was also the time the church started making a push towards core group attendees taking the membership covenant. We came from a church that did not believe in membership so we looked into what it was about. The membership covenant was scary to read. You swear allegiance to Mars Hill and to their doctrine and among others things that are made clear, swear submission to church leadership, swear submission to elders and submit to discipline when administered by leadership. I was a little alarmed by the overt demand for submission so did some research on the subject.

It is important to note that most churches that do include membership also include a vote with that membership. Driscoll contemporaries Tim Keller's & John Piper both offer membership at their church, but membership comes with a vote towards decisions made in the church. Mars Hill does not offer votes. It has been embroiled in controversy over claims by elders who were removed from their positions a few years back because they felt Mark Driscoll was consolidating power on the board of elders. The latest of many iterations of the reason they did this was because as an organization gets larger it needs to be able to make decisions more streamlined and so shrunk the size of their executive board. They may want to float this concept by the hundreds and thousands of major for-profit companies who when going through periods of expansion INCREASE the size of their board so specific board members are delegated to understanding specific parts of the company. Driscoll and friends contention that they needed to shrink the size of board in order to make decision making easier is downright dangerous when you consider these decisions cannot be tested by a vote of members.

Also part of membership is making an annual pledge for giving. In order to track your progress with your pledge, giving is done online. Someone in our group shared with us that if you aren’t meeting your pledge by say the first fiscal quarter, the church will have your community group leaders sit you down to give you a talking to so you get back on schedule. Although it seems harmless enough, the propensity for abuse is great here. If MH were thoughtful about who was installed as CG leaders it may work, but the two men we had dealt with as CG leaders did not give us much confidence.

It is also important to note that no where in the Bible is there anything whatsoever that includes description of membership in a church. Elders were chosen by democratic vote in Acts to be in charge of dispensing food to the poor. But that's about it.

Tim Keller's best attempt to give Biblical justification for membership was weak sauce in my book and the best he could come up with was that pastors must have had a list of names of people at the church. A list of names is a far cry from requiring someone to sign a legally binding contract and covenant. Keller's position by his own admission was dependent on a large number of assumptions that are improvable through scripture. What pastors need to say or least be honest about is that membership is a relic of the historical church, has no Biblical justification.

Then my wife started listening to the “Peasant Princess” series and over the course of listening to it started showing some disturbing signs of paranoia. Driscoll tells woman that sex is critical to a happy marriage and unless they 'put out' they are allowing Satan to sleep between them and their husbands, he directs woman to pleasure their men orally, pleasure them daily and be submissive to their needs. This is also the series that John Macarthur ripped Driscoll over as disgusting and vulgar. What was more important to me was that my wife became insecure & fearful. She began having dreams about me cheating on her and began quietly checking up on me out of fear. I’ve never come within a hundred miles of cheating on my wife…. It was as though she was worried about meeting Driscoll’s expectation for her in our marriage rather than my own.

Only later by way of his latest book “REAL MARRIAGE” did we discover that Driscoll did this entire series in a period of deep sexual frustration in his own marriage. He was projecting by telling the women of Mars Hill to act like he probably wanted his wife to be acting. His wife was made to come up on stage to “Answer Questions” after each service regarding a marital issue she herself was struggling with. The wickedness of that is troubling to me. But what mattered in that moment is I saw what it was doing to my wife. I connected the dots quickly since her concerns and fears were all in sexual context so told her to stop listening to the series….. Another RED FLAG.

We also saw a series of videos where Driscoll was now “dreaming dreams about things that were unknown” like he states in his book that he had a dream about his wife sinning sexually on a senior high school trip that ended up being true, and has said he can discern things about peoples character by looking into their eyes. He has used the term “read their mail”.

First off, let me say that it's troubling that the visions he typically has are of a sexual nature. The description he gave of the "vision" he had regarding his wife is borderline pornographic. So it begs the question whether or not these are visions from God or another spirit. I tend to score high on spiritual gifts tests for discernment but am not crazy enough to think I can stare into someone’s eyes and discern secrets or truths about them without them saying anything. I have never known the Holy Spirit to operate in this way on such a point blank consistent basis. But no one is challenging Driscoll on this.Realize this is a man who now claims to have all the gifts of the spirit. A "gift" of teaching, a gift of pastor and a gift of apostleship as church planter. And now is being shown the unknown. A convergence? Or a man who has discovered that he isn’t just a pastors or a shepherd or a teacher or an apostle, no he is a Prophet! This is the slippery slope that men find themselves standing on when surrounded by worshipers and admirers and when they are lifted up to idolatrous levels by their congregations. Certain species of pride radically magnify into something dangerous.

As we came closer to the church launch, the holiday season was approaching. Our Community Group had completely taken over our lives and was suffocating any other relationships we could have in our community. We were always tied up with something relating to Mars Hill and our children were starting to pay a price as they had no friends in our neighborhood to play with, only kids from CG and at least a couple times a week we were getting home far too late for them to get proper sleep for school. At some point near the end my wife got into a mild argument with our CG leader about the meaning of covenant. She was asking in terms of membership covenant and was speaking to the gravity of the term. He was whitewashing it by likening it to a cell phone bill. It was the first time, and if I have anything to do with it, the last time a man has told her to pipe down as though she needed to know her place. This was right after I had had a really discouraging talk with the men in the group about cigarettes.

I still smoked cigarettes and asked for PRAYER to help me quit. Instead they started telling me I was guilty of IDOLATRY and that I needed to REPENT to the group. I pushed back and told them I didn’t feel any spiritual conviction but wanted help quitting for health reasons not spiritual ones so prayer would be appreciated. They tried likening cigarette smoking to porn addiction (which was a disturbing parallel to try to draw). I said no, you don’t have any clue what you’re talking about, they are apples and oranges! But the next week again they badgered me about my “idolatry”. I felt then that they wanted to saddle me with guilt, saddle me with my sin and offer repentance through themselves and the church. I was the stubborn hold out who wouldn’t share my deep sins with them, I wouldn’t give them the dirt they wanted. The CG leader actually got visibly angry with me that I wouldn’t accept HIS decision that I was in SIN through IDOLATRY and needed to repent to the group. I GOT OUT OF THE ROOM FIRST CHANCE I GOT, AND NEVER WENT BACK.

The next week the CG pulled the bullying stunt with my wife since I didn’t go and that weekend she came to me very pensively and asked if I had any concerns about Mars Hill. I wasn’t sure if she wanted my honest answer so gently told her I had some “concerns here and there”. We began comparing notes and found almost perfect uniformity in our concerns. The Holy Spirit showed these things to each of us independent of each other. Before we made the decision to notify the church that we would no longer be attending, we spent the weekend and early part of the next week seeking clarity through prayer and God's word. God took us to the many of the same scriptures independent of each other, to the level that there could be no mistake it was divine providence. By early the next week it was abundantly clear that we needed to leave.

We knew we couldn’t continue on with this church. There was no accountability within the leadership but a tremendous amount of accountability within the flock. The actions at CG led me to believe bondage is part and parcel of life at MH. The more dirt you spill, the more they admonish and reconcile you of your dirt, the more emotionally dependent on the group and the church you become and the more you sort of wallow in your sinfulness. For men it’s a comfortable dependency because Driscoll is preaching a masculine manly gospel, completely off base with the glory, sovereignty and power of our lord God who is the architect of the universe and author of creation, but comfortable for the flock nonetheless.

We thought it best not to talk it out with members of our CG since our questions and problems were severe, they were not minor issues. We also didn’t want to be divisive by sharing major problems we had with others at MH. We figure the Holy Spirit will reveal the same truth to others if they look and didn’t want to get ahead of God on this by trying to win others to our side. So we drafted up a kind and simple form letter stating family reasons for leaving and let everyone know that we would no longer be attending Mars Hill.

DISCLAIMER TO THOSE INTERESTED!
THIS SHOULD HAVE AND COULD HAVE BEEN THE END OF THIS STORY. AND IF IT HAD BEEN THEN THIS BLOG POST WOULD NOT EXIST. BUT IT'S NOT.

PART 2
I was immediately contacted by the CG leader who wanted me to sit down with him and talk about our decision. I knew the community group leader pretty well by this point and knew that this wasn't going to be a fond send off. I had now seen how the group was operating and didn’t want to be engaged in a bully pit with CG leader and wasn’t confident he would keep the conversation to just us thinking he may invite senior members or other's from CG to our supposed sit down. I also had a very strong impression from the tone of those messages that this wasn't going to be about our decision to leave as much as it was about our reasons, whether our reasons were valid, and whether or not they needed to "set us straight". I have since learned that these reconciliation/ type meetings can become intensive lines of questioning where members are forced to either admit wrong doing, submit to church authority and possibly discipline or concede the Church's viewpoint and do as they say as though the church has authority to make decisions in your life. It sounds crazy but after many months of exposure I almost bought into it. It was about a week after we sent our parting letter and took the American Flag of all things to snap me out of it and realize the old cliche "THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY". It's scary when you notice that freedom is quietly being infringed upon by people claiming to "love you". It took nearly two or three weeks of complete separation from Mars Hill for that simple concept, 'freedom', to rise to the top and break through the clouds in my mind that were filled with MH jargon and speak. That being said I wasn't sitting down with our CG leader.

So I said no! I would gladly field any questions he had... BY EMAIL. But he refused to contact me by email and demanded again that I meet with him. I refused (as much because it was becoming alarming to me that it HAD TO BE IN PERSON and this led me to believe there may be something or someone unexpected at the meeting. The purpose of doing it by email was to slow the conversation, allow processing and prayer before response. The only reason I could derive that it had to be in person is that pressure is only effective through this medium. It's kind of hard to pressure someone or bully them through email. My wife and I did make a point to contact friends that we had grown closer to than others and sent them more intimate communications. None of these communications included any negative feelings we had regarding Mars Hill one way or the other, they were exhibitions of love to people we felt we were connected with more deeply. Mine were met with silence, but my wife’s were met with immediate demands for reasons. The only contact we had with members at Mars Hill from that point on involved wanting to know our reasons... nothing else. No offers to pray for us, no well wishing, no heart felt goodbyes. Just demands for reasons. After the CG's third request to meet in person I essentially told him that I had no interest in meeting with a member of Mars Hill to discuss decisions I've made regarding leaving Mars Hill. I told him I did not see how he could provide objective advice or counsel being entrenched in Mars Hill and assured him that I had numerous men much older and wiser than I that I was seeking counsel with but if he had any questions, concerns or feelings he needed to share for his self he could email them to me and I would respond promptly.

Then all communication with everyone went silent.

For a week we heard nothing from anyone. I was actually starting to feel better like it was over. I was sick of thinking so much about church, and not God and was excited to move forward in whatever direction God had in store for our family. My wife however was anxious and seemed to think the other shoe was about to drop.

Then the community group leader finally sent me an email! Notifying me that he left a message for me and my wife on The City.

HE HAD ISSUED HIS JUDGMENT.

First he said he loved us.
Then he drew into question whether we were able to discern God's will for our own family, implied that we might not be and "IF" that was the case suggested that our failure to hear the truth was endangering our family.
Then he drew into question our motives for leaving, implied that I could not be a good father, husband or man without the guidance and "accountability" of the men at Mars Hill.
He implied that we were running from the truth, hiding like shameful people because we knew we were wrong and were doing this for our own motives.
Then let us know that senior leadership (pastors and deacons) were now involved and essentially called us cowards for not being willing to communicate with them. It is important to note that I never told him I wasn't willing to communicate with him, just didn't want to sit down and discuss reasons.
He then implied that we were fake Christians, consumer Christians who were just in it for what we could get.
Then he essentially called us wolves for causing division by contacting the weak little sheep of his flock but being unwilling to talk to him. Literally as though we were predators prowling along the perimeter picking off weaker members of their flock by sending them emails letting our friends know we loved them and would miss them. Oh the wickedness!
He chastised us for communicating with our friends but being unwilling to submit to questioning from him, like we were supposed to honor some military chain of command.
And wrapped it up by saying essentially that even after all that we had done, after all our cowardice, our wickedness, our selfishness, our foolishness our phony faith and our questionable character, HE STILL LOVED US ENOUGH TO ALLOW US TO SIT DOWN WITH HIM AND TALK ABOUT IT SO WE COULD BE RECONCILED!

It was the most bizarre, most abusive, most arrogant thing I have ever seen in my life in the context of organized religion. I have never seen a church leader overstep his would be authority so blatantly and with such recklessness. The manipulation of the letter was powerful. Call a man a coward or infer that he’s hiding like a chicken and you’ll get a reaction, question him as a dad, as a man, his integrity and his honor…. It is a potent weapon. He did let slip in his message that the lead pastors at the church were now involved. So this wasn’t some loose cannon, he had the full support and direction of Pastoral staff. My wife was destroyed! It has now been months since that letter and she still sees things through a jaded prism.

The church for her was the safest place on earth before. She had total confidence in the church to protect, serve and love honorably as Christ did. God's bride was where she felt most secure and most at home. Now she has trouble trusting church, she's jaded, and cannot give people within it the benefit of the doubt. Our old church seemed like and still does seem like Paradise now.

Maybe he assumed the stuff between the lines would land and stick as he wanted it to, maybe he thought the tactics of guilt and shame would resonate in our minds and that we couldn't see it for what it was. I do believe that if we had not had a good three weeks apart from Mars Hill before we got that letter, it might have had the desired effect. But we were already sort of going through "deprogramming" by listening to messages from trusted pastors and reading our Bible without the constant drum beat of Mars Hill rhetoric echoing in the background. What is important is that it didn't work. I responded by calling him on using tools of guilt, using tools of shame, using tools of condemnation and then offering himself as a source of reconciliation and grace giver. I called him on throwing out the word "love" recklessly when every other word in the letter was anger and condemnation. My wife then responded by undressing his points one by one.

A few days later I used Mathew 18 as my guide and attempted to "reconcile" with him. I sent him an email. It was not apologetic, it was not pleading for forgiveness or reconciliation, but I was kind and even though there were some stern corrections in it, there was love present in it too. I let him know that we did not choose to leave because of him, in case he thought it was his actions that drove us away. I let him know that his letter had caused enormous distressed in our household and admonished him for treating supposed friends so recklessly just because they wouldn't "submit" to him and let him know that my wife felt deeply betrayed by him and the community for purposing to throw it in our face that they all sat around and compared notes. I told him he needed to look at his letter again and realize the tactics that he used to try to assert authority over us. I did not attack him, I did not abuse him, but I did correct him, and I did it from a heart of Love. If I did anything I showed him how to lovingly correct someone so that next time he doesn't do the same thing to someone else that he did with us.

He never responded. We haven’t heard from him since.

After that, one of the Pastors made kind overtures through other channels to try to talk about what happened. I agreed to a phone conversation hoping we could find closure with them. We were weary and exhausted and hurt. I had watched too many tears fall from my wife's face because a church felt slighted? Because they needed to save face in a break up? My hope was that he wanted to apologize for what had gone down and how horrible our experience at Mars Hill was. If only so I could share with my wife that someone at Mars Hill realized they had gotten out of line.... to restore her faith and try to glue back together her rose colored lenses. These were women she had grown very close to over months and months of intensive relationship.... and now silence. No one called, texted, nothing. It was as though if you weren't a member of Mars Hill you didn't exist anymore.

But when I spoke with the pastor it immediately turned to our reasons. He wasn't concerned with whether or not we were okay, he didn't even remember my wife's name initially, even though my wife and his wife had grown very close. He wanted to know if we had "theological problems" first and foremost. Which was the only question we had gotten from anyone at Mars Hill since sending out our letter. And honestly we didn't!

None of our problems can really be delineated specifically to theology. They were and are ecclesia problems, church structure problems and church government problems. But all anyone wanted was the reasons and knowing how MH operates I can only assume it is so they could argue them with us. Maybe I could've shared them so he could have a go at arguing them, but I was tired no I was disgusted and weary of going through this with them. It had been nearly a month since we sent out our goodbye letter and we were still dealing with this one question! He didn't apologize either. What he actually did was assert that we didn't read the tone of the email properly and that we were equally responsible if not more responsible for the upset and implied just like the CG leader did that we may not be discerning God's will because God's will is apparently clear and obvious and if we didn't have clear direction on what is next, maybe we were wrong.

It was clear that this wasn't going to be the conversation I expected. So I kinda just shut down, I nodded, smiled, said yes, said no Uh Huh, Uh Huh, Yep, Okay, Okay, platitude, platitude, I hear ya, okay bye bye and hung up. I was done! It felt kinda like getting spit on as a final act of Mars Hill. Not only did this young, idealistic leader run roughshod over us, act out of malice because we wouldn't respect his authority and question the condition of our heart, but senior leadership was saying that it was our fault.

Be that what it may. We are free! and we pray and we test everything against the word of God, even Mark Driscoll.

Our hope in all of this is not to excoriate or marginalize the people involved in this story or to hurt them by telling it. It is our hope that others who are doubting, questioning or flat out want out of the controlling environment of churches like Mars Hill have a place to go to affirm their doubts and concerns. Someone who lets them know they aren't crazy.

My advice is to seek God, pray. pray and pray some more, open up your Bible, and never rely on the Church to spoon feed you the Word as though it's "too complex" for you. Seek the counsel of the Holy Spirit, pray. Ask God for direction and clarity, pray. God is faithful and loving. he will show up and guide you through it, and pray

And when he lets you know it's time to leave, just leave, don't worry about doing it well or with a "warm, and fuzzy". Leaving is a sign to people inside an organization that something is wrong with their church, so they will never provide you with that warm and fuzzy, they will always seek to marginalize you and make you feel like an outcast if you seek their approval on the way out the door.

Trust God With All Your Heart and Lean Not on Your Own Understanding.

Getting Down to the Heart of the Matter

2011-11-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Our Lord does not say to have doctrinal beliefs that are beyond reproach or theological understanding that is shining in it's wisdom. No our Lord says to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as though they were ourselves...... Furthermore he tells us to love our enemies.

As much as we LOVE to make it about head knowledge, doctrinal truths that we've drawn out of the Bible, the inerrant understanding of our theological studies....... or the answers and facts that we've compiled in our walk..... They are all meaningless..... Love as a state of mind and of heart, cannot be accomplished by studying our way into it..... It can only happen through prayer and devouring the Word..... Allowing both the Holy Spirit and the Word to instruct our perception and understanding.

It is not ignorance of God's nature that poses the greatest stumbling block in our pilgrimage. It is our inability to relinquish our willful obedience and let God refine us through the power of his Holy Spirit that dwells within us.

We always want to take credit for our improvement. We want to have an identifiable corner that we turned that we can point to as a marker for our progress...... True communion with God through prayer and inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives will not yield a progress that can be mapped our graphed with us hitting benchmarks as we go. The transforming and sanctification of our souls is a slow and deliberate one, if we are right minded and focusing our hearts on God and not the idols of this world or of the church, then this sanctification sneaks up on us, surprises us and overjoys us.

True prayer does not involve a laundry list of wants, desires and expectations for ourselves and others. We should humbly request our father to plow our hearts, cut away the anger, selfishness, ambition, desires, and covetousness that leads to restlessness and discontentment. This will not give us a marker to point to, but in my experience will lead to a heart more open to loving people I couldn't or wouldn't before.

When I can look at someone I used to see as an adversary or someone who has done things to hurt me or my family and begin to have compassion and want to help them, pray for them and serve them regardless of saving face..... then I've stumbled on something.

I have put political, social, and personal idols on the altar and discovered that once God takes them from me, he does replace the anger and discontentment that used to dwell there with love...... But I cannot find this love in the context of orthodox doctrine or following the teaching of cultural church icons of either the reformed or evangelical movements. No, this love and this heart comes from one place, a deep relationship with the Almighty. Nothing else will suffice.

So, like a well known but fiercely independent pastor I follow said recently in his study of John 3:16 "How many of us obey the simple command to love your neighbor?...... Lets start with that one.... then we can argue about predestination."

I want to reflect the character of Jesus, I want to reflect the love of God. I want to be a humble servant of God Almighty, not a student of Church history, culture, and theology.

GOD'S FINGERPRINT

2011-06-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Evolutionary scientists and zealots contend that every aspect of human intuition, instinct and behavior can be mapped to some external pressure or requirement relating to survival of our ancestors. They contend that love, mercy, charity, work ethic, perseverance and every other emotion and instinct human beings carry around with them, are etched into our DNA by our ancestors through the long evolutionary process of our species and are not a matter of autonomous soul searching, introspection or a matter of our personal identity and desires.

This concept that evolution explains it all is compelling and for most basic behaviors seen throughout humanity, there are at least plausible evolutionary causes. An evolutionary mindset says that love is not a subjective emotion or deep personal connection to someone else, but is instead simply our minds reacting to pheromones and other chemicals that we give off to each other in human interaction that lead us into feelings of connectedness and therefore compel us toward intimacy which ultimately leads to reproduction. This in turn secures our bloodline and our survival in the future.

Love is not a deep emotional experience but rather a byproduct of our instinct to mate and carry on our bloodline through reaction to chemicals. Essentially they postulate that love is a drug…. We are intoxicated by pheromones which give us a deep profound sense of wellbeing and oneness with someone whom we fancy. But this is simply a reaction to mechanisms that have been developed through the process of evolution.

One very confounding and problematic issue for evolutionary justification of the human condition is altruistic tendencies throughout humanity and the seemingly uniform standards of morality that we see throughout societies and cultures at every corner of the earth.

Morality has been moved upon by the full weight of the secular machine. Attacked from all sides and secular humanists contend that morality is not a constant and that it is relative to cultural and personal experience. They contend that morality in different parts of the world varies greatly in relation to the cultures, countries, races, socio-economic classes and geographic location. This has come to be considered “moral relativism”. However moral relativism would mean that no culture, society, or nation could therefore right a wrong in another country because what is therefore right or wrong is not static throughout the world. Most people agree that the genocide of Nazi Germany was wrong, horribly wrong in fact. However moral relativism does not allow for us to “judge” the morality of such.

There may be nuances to morality, but there is a deep and constant underpinning of “right and wrong” that cannot be discounted and that of all the species and organisms on earth, only humans are subject to.

C.S. Lewis made this contrast by saying “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in a battle or where a man felt proud of double crossing all the people who had been kindest to him.” Ultimately it is bad to hurt children and it is bad to hurt or mistreat the elderly, lying is wrong, oppression and murder are terrible, and despite varying degrees to what you should be unselfish towards (family, community or country) everyone pretty much agrees that selfishness is undesirable as well.

Proponents of moral relativism have spent decades trying to tear apart the concept of a moral law but have always found themselves stuck back at the same place. There are some things that everyone can agree are either evil or bad and others are good and right and to argue otherwise is futile.

Then of course evolution runs into a very deep and serious problem when we try to use evolution as a means for creating this morality in humans and even further the charitable spirit of altruism that is so widely celebrated throughout our society.

How many people in America can forget the pilot who landed the “Miracle on the Hudson” Capt. Sullenberger or “Sully”? He was celebrated throughout the country for his heroic efforts to evacuate all the passengers from the wrecked plane safely by putting his own life on the line. It evoked the spirit of heroism and selflessness that we admire so greatly in others and that we cultivate often in much smaller degrees within ourselves.

You don’t have to pull 155 people from a plane crash in the middle of a river to bring altruism into play. Our conscience speaks to us constantly on this issue. It is why we feel compelled to give money to poverty stricken people who beg on street corners and though we may not have all saved a life, when we see a complete stranger in trouble we feel compelled to help them even if it means putting our own life in danger. And once that person is free from harm…. An overwhelming sensation fills us with the sense that we have done “good“. And to make matters worse for evolutionary proponents, I know as well as most others that acts of charity and altruism done in private, without so much as my wife knowing I’ve committed them, are the acts that bring the greatest feelings of satisfaction and personal joy. There is no evolutionary justification for this. Scientist have tried to link altruism to attractiveness to mates, however this theory falls apart when we consider our closest evolutionary links in apes and monkeys who typically kill all of the infants and young males of a previous male before mating with a new female.

Another hypothesis put forward recently is that morality is not a matter of nature but a matter of nurture…. that our direct ancestors, our parents, are responsible for our morality. It is taught to us by mom and dad, not hardwired into us when we are born.

But this idea falls apart rather quickly both in the real world and scientific world. Anyone who has been a parent has walked into the room of their 2 or 3 year old child and found a child with a guilty look on their face as they play with one of mom’s or dad’s belongings. Though you may never have specifically told the child “DO NOT TOUCH THIS” when confronted, the child immediately knows he has overstepped a boundary. Also a recent study that was published in TIME magazine showed that infants as young as 9 months old has a clear understanding of right and wrong despite lacking even language to communicate on the subject.

6, 9 and 12 month old babies were independently shown a puppet show with 4 puppets. Of the 4 puppets one of them would steal items from other puppets, show cowardice and show poor manners and behave selfishly during the puppet show. At the end of the show the babies were directed to give treats to the puppets for the performance…. The results shocked (and honestly disappointed) the scientist who were hoping the children would show no understanding of right and wrong, but instead the children independently excluded the bad puppet from receiving treats and in one case a child actually took a swing at the bad puppet.

MORALITY IS PART OF US FROM THE START.

It is a language written into our hearts that tells us to “act this way and not this way”. It provides a basis for right and wrong and despite nuances in application it is largely universal through history and throughout the world. And yet it cannot be justified by evolutionary process.

If there is a God who lives outside of the natural world but whom has placed a “standard” of behavior upon us through his scriptures…. Wouldn’t it make perfect sense that in the process of creating us he etched a road map of that desired behavior into our hearts?

And that is exactly what we find inside ourselves…. a universal morality that has existed throughout history in exactly the same form at its base precepts through thousands of years of cultural and scientific development. It dwells within each of us quietly instructing our hearts and our behaviors. Disapproving (guilt) when we disobey and approving (confidence) when we do.

IT IS GOD’S FINGERPRINT ON OUR HEART

FRACTURED - The Western Church

2011-06-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has taken any time to read my posts, knows that I take serious issue with the Western/ European church “Structure” it’s reliance on manmade traditions and rituals and it’s seeming inability to divorce itself from real estate, money and commercial resources when it is essentially a matter of spirituality.

There is a deep, vast, powerful, wealthy, organized “religious movement” called the church of Jesus Christ that has spread throughout the America’s and Europe. Specific denominations throw around immense political power and are well funded by believer/ philanthropists and followers alike. However at its core the church is fractured, disorganized and tends to argue with itself over mundane issues relating more to philosophical interpretation of previous scholars than to the context and tenants of the scriptures themselves.

What has emerged from this fractured, mess are church “Brands” that are marketed to specific socio-political classes as well as specific ages, races, education level and geographic demographics.

You have hip younger pastors with deep stirring alternative worship music and mood lighting attracting young college age and young adult age followers. You have more orthodox, stringent, fire and brimstone pastors with choirs and hyms attracting older more conservative followers. But regardless of what brand is attracting which type of person….. In any city in America you might find 20,000 people who are believers going to 100 different churches who all believe there church/ pastor is best and who are largely disconnected from each other….. The Catholics over here, the Presbyterians over there, the Methodists over here, the Charismatic churches over there, the Calvary Chapels over here, and the Evangelicals over there, and though they all believe in the same Jesus Christ, the same scriptures, the same Holy Spirit and the same God… They are exclusive unto their own.

And in each circumstance they have a “Leader/ pastor” who they pretty much claim allegiance to and whom they prop up financially…. And it amounts to little tribes of Christians with their Chieftain not necessarily warring with each other, but certainly they are not all partnering together in a single minded spirit to worship Jesus and spread his good news to the sinners around them…. Typically they drive by the houses of hundreds of unbelievers on their way to Sunday service with “THEIR” church to do a glad hand/ meet and greet with friends in their community and essentially sit like an exclusive group inside the four walls of a building where none can see what is going on…. And where your average agnostic with questions, atheist with doubts or believer who has fallen away are intimidated to go.

Bear with me, but what if instead of locking ourselves away in a building with our sound system, our light show, and our big screen monitors tucked away from the rest of the world just like our brothers in Christ who are tucked away in their own building a few blocks away with different friends and like minded followers and different music, light shows and big screen monitors…… What if we went out into the public square where all the unbelievers could see, experience, and listen to the message of the Gospel without feeling like they were walking into enemy territory? Worried about walking into some church to be met by some waxy eyed, fake smile and feigned enthusiasm met them at the door and once inside they felt like they stood out like a sore thumb because everyone else “KNEW” the program. Where believers and unbelievers alike could co-mingle at a gathering without fear of someone prosthelytizing them and everyone and anyone could hear the message of Jesus.

We do this every now and then…. We do take service to the public….. It’s called Easter Sunday.

Once a year the Christian Brand with the biggest following in a certain town will often take over the high school, college or even sometimes pro sports stadium to takes their service public for everyone to see…. But by golly you sinners better buy in now because this is a limited time offer and next week we will once again retreat inside to our building where we feel safe with the creature comforts, good audio and video, and our light show to enjoy our own personal Jesus, where you will have to come to us and not us to you.

Because Jesus Christ doesn’t chase after us does he? He sits patiently at the right hand of the father waiting for us to get a clue…..NO Jesus hunts us down in our hearts.

So what does a biblical church look like? It’s a gathering of Christians outside for all the world to see and for all the world to join. We hold it in a public park where the only costs are the weekend permit fees (if there are any) and having a deep understanding of the bible and a charismatic speaking voice doesn’t mean you get to live off the labor of your Christian brothers…. It means you volunteer your time on the weekend and maybe a day or two during the week. And instead of a group of 3 or 4 well paid pastors who try to attend to the concerns and needs of the church body (but rarely do and usually end up creating their own little fiefdoms with their “inner circle” of believers) we appoint 100 men and women as elders who tend to younger less experienced humans and followers of Jesus and the church begins to look like the kingdom.

Where there is no pecking order the ground truly is level at the foot of the cross and so it should be within the church. Church missions being skewed by money needs and real estate needs disappear and nominal expenses are all that need to be dealt with….. incidental costs like a couple few amplifiers, a guitar or two, a PA system, and maybe permit fees with the city to throw a weekend festival in the park.

But no one wants to do that because they have their OWN brand to develop. Their own church “VISION” to create…. Amazing that Jesus has called so many different people to start different churches right down the street from each other.

Reality is that churches are money makers…. Some churches with congregations upwards of 1000 people are raking in millions of dollars a year. Where is the money spent? Rarely on feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and providing for the widows….. It gets spent on buildings, sound systems, video systems, aesthetically pleasing media and marketing tools, High gloss digitally rendered print media, and salaries, salaries and more salaries.

Whether you’ve bought into the western corporate model church or not, you cannot say that it stands in contrast to the world….. like the salt of the earth or the light of the world. The corporate church of today appears to be just one of hundreds of different extensions of the world. It deviates little from the consumer driven, brand marketing, comfort zone providing culture of our society at large. It is not radical, state of the art or dynamic. It is cool and hip in some places.... There are younger churches on the rise with some sharper more honest views on doctrine..... but no one questions the old skool template for the church itself. A pastor who wants to make his living as a pastor cannot ask those questions because it leads him to hypocrisy..... or to weaving a fantastic tale of scriptures cut and pasted out of context in his mind together to prove a limp point with which he an proceed witha mostly clear conscience.

But at the end of the day. The western church is an impotent, self absorbed rock show..... It meets certain needs for consumer America and does lead some to Jesus.... but as a whole. It is dare I say a mockery and an insult to the revolutionary figure..... the God man who set foot on earth and was tortured and killed in order to save us.... It does him not an ounce of justice.

Think about it….. An exclusive group of white middle class people sequestering themselves away for a couple of hours to listen to songs and a charismatic civic leader give them a pep talk to start their work week….. Is that the vision that Jesus Christ had for the world? No, it's a vision men had for themselves, born out of spiritual ego, to create their own BRAND and start their own "MINISTRY".

IF THE DAY COMES WHERE EVERY WOULD BE PASTOR WHO FEELS CALLED TO "LEAD PEOPLE TO JESUS" DECIDES THAT HE IS GOING TO NAME HIS NEW CHURCH "THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST"
INSTEAD OF ALL THE HIP AND COOL NAMES WE HAVE FOR CHURCHES THESE DAYS..... LIKE - ROCK HARBOR - CORNERSTONE - THE VINE - THE GARDEN - MARS HILL - HOUSE OF LIVING WATER - AND THESE PASTORS AREN'T CLAMORING TO WRITE BOOKS BEFORE THEY'VE EVEN LIVED A DECADE IN THEIR ADULT LIFE THEN MAYBE I COULD GIVE SOME CREDENCE TO THEIR CALLING, BUT KNOWING THE HEART OF A MAN.... BOTH BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER HE GETS SAVED..... I KNOW IT'S AS MUCH ABOUT THE MEN LEADING THESE CHURCHES AS IT IS ABOUT GODS MISSION FOR THE WORLD.

OTHERWISE GODS KINGDOM WOULD BE CATCHING LIKE WILDFIRE THROUGHOUT THE EARTH...... AND ITS NOT...... IT'S SLOWLY DYING AWAY..... NOT QUITE SMOLDERING..... BUT GODS CHURCH IS FAR FROM A BLAZING INFERNO...... AND I TRULY BELIEVE IT IS THIS WESTERN MODEL THAT IS TO BLAME.

Freedom in Christ Really Means Freedom

2011-05-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

We are a people who thrive in orderly surroundings. We build cities with Avenues named numerically, with city planners laying out cities in east to west and north to south fashion. We live in varying degrees with institutional mindsets.... some on the hardest core edge thrive in the perfect order of military structure, others thrive in the pecking order of corporate governance, while others seem to be more apt to living in disarray and confusion and we typically see these people occupying positions throughout government..... kidding..... kinda.

Typically when a city, county, state, nation or other group of people of like minded purpose get together, they establish laws..... aka establish a written, hard copy order of things. What is good, what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. Constitutions, laws, parliaments, police states, military states.... are all symptoms of human desire for order and a rule of law.

When Jesus arrived on Earth some 2000 +/- years ago, there was an established "Law" that all Jews followed in order to measure their righteousness and overall worthiness in the eyes of God. Jesus didn't come to Earth to 'add to' the existing law or to supplement it with options or amendments, he came to fulfill and replace the law. This is why he was such a dangerous figure to the religious ruling class of the age. They held their positions of power and authority over others through utilization of the laws of Moses. They were considered the wisest, most righteous, most sinless people of the age and so enjoyed a position of authority which provided them with power, wealth, influence, and according to the age, a certain amount of fame.

Jesus fulfilled the law, and in doing so released Jews and the rest of humanity from it's burdens. However humans are a sick people and no sooner had Jesus left his Earthly ministry to take his seat at the right hand of the father, then people started falling back into the bondage of the law.

Today Christians still exist in bondage to laws, precepts and requirements that Jesus fulfilled and did away with thousands of years ago. We still feel guilty if we do not give our church 10% of our income, we still feel guilty if we have a glass of wine, or smoke a cigarette or curse or get angry at someone or lie etc.... because we somehow think, and have been taught, that we are somehow in control of our own salvation.

In the old days of Judea, yes you had to sacrifice an animal to cleanse yourself for your sin.... but Jesus was and is the final sacrifice. We had a messiah come to Earth to save us, marry us (the church) and free us from legalism.... and we still willingly shackle ourselves to that legalism that he dies to free us from.

Obviously Church leaders have a lot to do with this. Just like every other rotten government on Earth, Religious groups that attain too much power will always..... always use whatever tools they have available to them to control, influence and dictate to their followers.

Despite the tithe dying on the cross with Jesus 2000 years ago, virtually every Church in America and the world beyond will come down with a hammer on it;s congregation if it feels they aren't giving the 'required' ten percent of their income...... So more sinners can get saved? NO, so the pastor can pay his mortgage and car payment.

There is a big movement in America towards reformed theology..... Stripping the church of it's political power...... reverting to a Gospel centered Church architecture that throws away two thousand years of human tradition, ritual and institutions and supplanting it with a Church architecture based ENTIRELY on the inerrant words of the Bible...... But even this radical movement falls just a few feet short of the mark...... Yes it acknowledges that humans are sin.... we are evil by nature and cannot reconcile ourselves to God through any....ANY action of our own..... but only through faith in Jesus Christ, can we be reconciled..... It is an awesome concept not to deconstruct the church entirely but to strip it down to mirror the Church of the New Testament..... But even within this movement we find Pastors who use the Church as their primary source of income.

Paul worked a normal job..... then preached..... Jesus was a carpenter.... then preached...... However if we are going to revert to Gospel centered church it cannot only go so far as is convenient, it must go all the way...... When I hear someone say they got their degree from say Biola University in Church Administration.... and listen to them speak about reformed theology.... I wonder if Jesus vision for the Church was men carrying around degrees from "Christian Universities" looking for jobs as youth pastors to work their way through the ranks..... just like any other corporation on earth, until they were either promoted to Head Pastor or were in a position to start their own practice or CHURCH!

It's so bizarre to me and yet is the main blind spot of this movement..... Until the Church is able to COMPLETELY divorce itself from (A) politics and power and (B) money...... it will never truly resemble the church of acts..... I sometimes wonder what it would be like to work at a Church..... if you give sermons on Sunday, do you just lament all week on your teaching..... Pray alot.... talk Christianese with other church employees and read your bible all day?

Although it sounds tempting, I am more inclined to believe that Pastors, real pastors worth their mustard would come from everyday jobs.... Masons, carpenters, mechanics, real estate agents.... whatever.... and that part of building a church would not require lots of real estate acquisitions for buildings but that church would be held in houses.... and that a network of community where Sunday church could be found at two dozen different houses in a certain town and when the whole movement needed to get together to hash stuff out, they could do it in a park or at the beach or some other place that doesn't require one person telling others to give him their money so he can pay the $5000.00 mortgage or rent. Because if you ask any secular person what turns them off the most about church.... it is the blatant marriage of churches to money and the seeming inappropriate use of money to support one or two or three men's lifestyle by taking from others.

Collections should be taken..... to feed homeless..... to help orphans and widows..... to feed starving children and help single mothers getting out of violent situations...... But not to pay some would be spiritual leaders mortgage because he got a degree from a Christian University.... and not to put a group of college kids up in the Best Western Inn, in Mazatlan so they can act as "Missionaries"

I admire the courage of some of today's church leaders and their movement towards the gospel and away from the traditions of men.... I admire that they are willing to take steps that will limit the power and influence of a Church they supposedly lead..... But doing something only to the point where it begins to effect you directly isn't sufficient..... Either Jesus is the architect or he is not..... and Jesus church did not take collections and Jesus did not take a salary.... and Jesus did not graduate Magna Cum Laude in church administration from Westmont University...... You could argue that the Pharisees did though.

And Pharisees have no place leading the Christian movement..

Jesus Christ Is Punk Rock

2011-03-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Punk Rock is non-conformist, anti-government, anti-control, screw authority in your face culture.... at least it used to be before the Avril Lavigne's, Sum 41's, Fallout Boys, and other Chemical Romance corporate bands started popularizing it...... It was dangerous and a threat to the status quo.....

So is Jesus Christ!

Jesus was a threat to the entire order of things when he showed up on the scene.... That's why he was crucified.... because the ruling class wanted him silenced! Jesus challenged convention, disregarded the authority of both the religious ruling class, King Herod, and even the Roman Empire itself.

He offered dynamic, revolutionary ideas to the public..... that upholding the law wasn't as important as the heart that was doing so..... that there was freedom in communion with the father..... and that the religious leaders would stand at the back of the line while the so-called sinners came into the kingdom first.....And he did so with an unwavering sense of absolute authority.

He challenged thousand year old precepts, and ideas upon which the entire power structure in Jerusalem and Judeah was built and had been built for centuries.... He infuriated the religious elite so badly that they wanted him dead..... not because of blasphemy..... but because he was a threat to their power.

Jesus was a revolutionary figure and yet A man born of the most humble circumstances from an otherwise unextraordinary family with no ties to wealth or power. His circumstances dictated that his life be spent quietly seeking a decent living and modestly attempting to improve his circumstances as a carpenter. There was no convetional reason that a common man should feel entitled to make such accusations as he did to religious leaders and challenge the order of things.... WHO THE HELL DID HE THINK HE WAS?

No man in that age would dare make the declarations Jesus made given the circumstances of his life..... But Jesus did it with absolute authority.... Acting like a man with absolute authority and power.
He challenged convention, ate with taxpayers, drank with Samaritans, enjoyed the company of sinners, adulterers, lepers, prostitutes, the wretches of society..... and yet stood bold faced before the leaders of the age and called them liars and failures "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you." MT 21:31 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!" MT-23:15

Jesus was a revolutionary....... Jesus was Punk Rock...... he was not afraid of anything, and loved everyone.... he lived among the misfits, drank with troublemakers, and hung around with roughnecks...... and got in the face of authority every chance he got...... He did this because he knew he was the true authority.

I wonder if the modern, consumer crazed, suburban driving, soccer mom churches of today realize the potency of the man they supposedly call king? Is he seen as a dynamic, hard core, no holds barred revolutionary God who came to earth and turned everything upside down? No.... typically he is gentle milquetoast. A watered down sing song version of himself that is easily digested by the masses without much that can offend...... The Jesus of the modern church requires little from us, and promises us much.... He offers eternal happiness in Heaven, creature comforts all our live long days, and only requires that we show up on Sunday's..... clap for songs.... smile at others while we shake hands.... maybe commit to making coffee once a month before service...... and offers us little factions of like minded watered down, milquetoast friends that we can do couples BBQ's with and bake sales and take turns shuttling kids to practice.

In the meantime we learn an elaborate language "christianese" that replaces 'happy' with 'blessed' and numerous other english language modifications so we can identify each other out and about.

Unbeliever: "I am happy that I got a new iPad 3G"
Believer: "I am blessed for receiving my new iPad 3G..... God is Good!"

But reality is that our God has the same character as the Christ did 2000+ years ago..... God is just as revolutionary and dangerous as he was back then..... and we should begin to acknowledge that powerful fact.... there is power and purpose in the Gospel.... and it is an amazing story of a common man of modest upbrining, challenging and terrifying the rulers of the age.... and if we strip away the modern powder puff Jesus we've sold ourselves on, we can begin to experience the dynamic power of a God who takes no prisoners, challenges everything, demands much, and offers unthinkable things ahead.

Jesus Christ was a non-conformist.....a revolutionary figure..... Church shouldn't be milquetoast....... Because Jesus Christ is Punk Rock!

What Church Is This?

2011-01-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Evangelical, Protestant, Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches all pray to the same God.... all believe in the same Lord.... Jesus....

In each category, there are dozens of sub categories..... and each sub category has dozens of different mindsets depending on geographical location, socio-political make up of the congregation, age and belief structure of their elders.

The looming question is that there is only one bible.... one God, and one Jesus. How can so many organically different congregations exist which, if you ask them, believe they are fundamentally different than the others? Their differences may exist in how Calvin or Wesley interpreted the bible, or their differences may be that some don't see the differences while others do, but at the end of the day, the Christian movement is largely an institution of mankind and not the human representation of Jesus will..... How could this have happened... and how come no one seems to care? Everyone who considers themselves a member of one or the other is quick to point out the flaws in the other..... Reformed Christians are quick to poke holes in Catholicism and Catholics are quick to speak to the "watered down" demands that other churches place on themselves, but no one seems to see a problem with the fact that there ARE differences.

It speaks to the fact that human beings, despite our amazing capacity to adapt and dare I say evolve under dynamic circumstances, are still fundamentally a tribal species with tribal roots that cannot be unwound from our DNA. In nations like the USA where consumerism is king, you find tribal Christian churches preaching self help sermons on Sunday and pastors who present Jesus like some sort of spiritual stock broker or 401(K) plan with a rock solid history of returns.... They present him as gentle giant who wants his kids to be happy or as Francis Collins said a senile old grandfatherly figure who "likes to see young people having fun" .... so just pray this prayer and god will HOOK YOU UP! with all the techno gadgets, cars, homes, clothes and other suburban trappings that your heart desires.... Other nations where poverty is a way of life and daily survival is a real concern, speak to a more genuine image of Jesus, a God who tells us to cast our troubles upon him and let him sustain us every moment of our lives.

But no matter the spin, it doesn't change the fact that as a tribal people we have therefore become a network of Christian "tribes" who see no more in common with other tribes than Apache Indians did with Navajos and it is hard to outwardly identify the difference between Christians in America and unbelievers..... this is sad. But Jesus never told us to build buildings and meet on Sunday together and pat each other and ourselves on the back for being believers.... All he ever commanded us to do was "GO" and share the gospel with the rest of the world..... which seems to be the exact opposite of sitting in the same pew, week after week, year after year, fellowshipping with the few select people in your local tribe that you feel akin to, because even inside one local tribe there are factions, cliques, and sadly in most churches a pecking order.... While self congratulatory Christians write tithe checks to absolve ourselves of our rotten consumer driven hearts by paying our pastors to tell us heart warming stories about all that god wants to do for us... Meanwhile we show no outward signs of love and compassion for the rest of the world and more often than not are viewed as "holier than thou" & judgmental by the very people Jesus commanded us to love, embrace and engage.

I don't claim to have the answer or even understand the problem completely, but it is a problem nonetheless and I do know that believers must acknowledge that something is wrong before they can start making things right.

The American Church

2011-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Trying to characterize the entire population of American Christians and this or that is nearly impossible. Just as people, social classes, races, cultures, sexes and lifestyle differentiate Americans in dynamic ways, denominations, beliefs, rituals, practices, church structures and fundamental theology differentiate churches in numerous ways.

But there are positives and negatives associated with all of these. Catholics abide in a set of rituals and practices that could be argued are no where to be found in the bible, however these rituals, rites and practices give people a window to the past. You can walk into any catholic church on Sunday and see roughly the exact same thing that was going on in catholic churches a thousand years ago.... It ties us to something ancient and timeless in history..... But in terms of theology.... Catholicism can and often is attacked for adhering to rules and laws established by man, rather than by God or his human embodiment Jesus.

The hundreds of different modern denominations, Calvary Chapel, Southern Baptist, Nazarene's, Four Square, Cornerstone, and mega churches like Saddleback, and others seem to be trending more towards teaching what is in the bible and only what is in the bible, however it is offered in a watered down, "Self Help" sort of way that is structured more at filling the seats and creating a pleasant atmosphere, than focusing peoples hearts and minds on the powerful calling of Jesus Christ and what that entails.

The American church, somewhere, evolved into a Sunday meet and greet, where all the like minded locals come out to see friends, share stories and be seen..... at church..... Listen to some nice music, get a little pep talk from a vocational pastor, and feel self fulfilled and a little uplifted heading into the work week.

Alot of those smaller churches that do take a more militant, hard core stance regarding Jesus message to the world, have allowed specific current issues to drive their actions, dictate their ministry and cause them to push others away while trying to beat people over the head with what they believe to be right.

Be it the waspish congregations that pack the seats at Joel Osteen's mega church for a weekend pep talk and self help seminar, or the salvation minded gang churches that operate like recovery centers for druggies and gang members, everyone of them has allowed human ideology to creep in.... Be it in what they teach, their beliefs, how they teach, how they operate on Sunday and throughout the week.

Jesus commanding statement at the end of his earthly ministry was to "Go into all the world and preach the good news all creation" This was to be done.... After the disciples received the power from the holy spirit.... So the final command Jesus gave all Christians was to stay until you are empowered with the holy spirit, and then go make disciples of others...... The modern church in America has millions upon millions of people waiting around in the city for the power of the holy spirit, but very few are out in the world spreading the good news.

We are a consumer driven society and so that requires that anything we allow into our lives must fit into a pre-existing comfortable template that we've created for our lives. Jesus did not come and die on the cross because it was easy, comfortable or convenient.... He did as a radical act of love, to transform the fate of humanity.... He gave us hope, he gave us a pathway to paradise that we had lost in the days of Adam.... But to follow that path, to achieve that eternal paradise, we must not only mentally note and agree with his commands, we must advance his kingdom and ministry on earth..... Christianity was never meant to be easy or comfortable.... It was supposed to put us in the cross hairs of a world that hates us, and force us to act in God's best interest, not our own.... So in America where being a "christian" is just a label attached to visiting a building on Sunday morning..... if your life and ministry is not taking a toll or putting you in uncomfortable situations...... It is likely that neither you nor your church leaders are abiding in God's will for his earthly ministry..... Remember God created the universe..... He is into radical events and radical action and wants a radical representation of his existence on earth.

You cannot change your church, your pastors, your family or friends.... but you can make the commitment to fearlessly go wherever God asks you.... Each and everyone of us is responsible for their own mission.

Salvation was purchased with a heavy price, do it justice.

Does God Hate Gay People?

2010-11-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

Operational Word is Whosoever

Does God Hate gay people.....The short answer is no. It is actually is a sick abuse of scripture to say otherwise.

God does not hate.... God is, as we understand him to be, pure love.... agape love.... unconditional love. He doesn't throw people into hell because he hates them, he does it because they deserve it. We all deserve it! That is what is so amazing about Jesus.... he gave us a chance! And he didn't exclude anyone. I cannot vouch for God's character as I have not an inkling of understand of his true nature but my best interpretation of everything we know about him, the Bible, is that he doesn't hate as we do..... That would detract from his perfectly holy character.... Even those he throws into the fiery depths of hell are not hated.... God does not hate us, and because he hates us he sends us to hell. He is a just god and does so out of justice.

Now in terms of homosexuality, the Church perpetrating a terrible distortion and pervesion of God's word in order to promote their own ideological agenda..... Largely because people fear, or hate that which they do not understand.... But this is human kind placing it's own biased template of understanding over God's word and using specific scriptures to support their arguement without considering the totality of the teachings in the Bible. Exegesis doesn't prove anything.

I could do the same with any book.... I could arbitrarily pick a few verses out of any book and completely change the context of the story based on what it says in those few sentences. Try it.... Open up any novel, or non-fiction piece of work and read a few sentences, and then postulate what the book is about from those few sentences.... This does any book a terrible injustice, and Christians do this not to be stalwart supporter's of God's will, which is to love even your enemies as yourself, but to advance their own agenda of political, social and ideological stereotypes.

There is nowhere in the Bible that establishes a classification system for sin. There isn't a part of the Bible that classifies homosexuality as a class 5 sin but stealing is only a class 2 sin or lying is only a class 3 or 1 sin depending on whether it is a big black lie or a little white lie..... Sin is sin, and each and every one of us chooses to sin everyday. And yet there are thousands of so-called Christians marching around and looking down their noses announcing that somehow they are better, and homosexuals are an abomination unto the lord..... Their hate filled protest is every bit as abhorrent.

In God's eyes homosexuality is an abomination, but so is every other sin under the sun, which draws every single human on earth under this classification of "sinner".

How many Christians have had a drinking problem? Or want the new iPhone 4 for Christmas (Coveting), or have shoplifted some time in their life (stealing), or tell little white lies so they don't hurt people they love (lying)? Do these anti-gay groups ever read the part of the Bible that says God hates a lying tongue?

Or what about people who live their lives worshipping money (aka everyone in America)? Or want to or have cheated on their wives, husbands, or girlfriends or boyfriends? Or want a car like their neighbors or TV, or BBQ pit? Or who gosip about people they know (bearing false witness) or use the slang terms "God D@mn!t" or "JESUS CHRIST!" in an inappropriate way?

The truth is that we all fall short. If we could measure up to God's will for us, we wouldn't need Jesus Christ. If we are all sinners, and we all fall short of the glory of God, what makes a homosexual any worse than anyone else? Nothing.

Well this is where hatefilled fools of the word say "They choose to live in sin".... yeah maybe they do, but the problem is that in our actions, our words or our thoughts, we all fall short every day. We all sin everyday so what does it matter what type of sin? God does not see certain sins as worse than others, except for blasphemy. Therefore anyone who wants to contend that homosexuality is a "deep sin" should reference the Bible and clarify if it is such an important issue to God, why did it not even make it onto the Ten Commandments?

Truth is, I have some problems with Gay Activism. I don't like that certain gay advocacy groups who want to fight their battles in the public schools. I have problems with Gay marriage because marriage was and is first and formost a religious ceremony, where two people are cleaved together under God...... If a same sex couple wants all the same legal rights as a married couple, then dometic partnerships and civil unions should be strengthened in order to provide equality..... And if state run agencies want to hand out so called "marriage licenses" then so be it, I am not going to die on that hill by any stretch. Everyone should have equal rights...... Somehow the battle taking place in public schools feels more like special rights that equal rights but in terms of whether or not God thinks gays are worse than others..... I find nothing in the Bible that supports such thinking.

God very clearly said, 'whatever measure you use to judge other people will also be used on you by your God". Sadly the most common description non-believing people give when describing Christians is "judgemental". This can be partially credited to sensationalistic media stories where certain fringe element churches get lots of face time in front of camera's for pulling stupid stunts, but in general it is because somewhere along the way, Christians, being saved, feel that their own opinions become as righteous as the God they believe in.

If Christians are to ever see a day where they are not being persecuted, a prerequisite for this is going to be us mirroring God's love to all, no matter what demographic, socio-political disposition, race, sex, social class or sexual orientation..... When this happens, then maybe the Church will look somewhat similar to what Jesus wanted it to look like.... Until then we will all fall short and per the Bible, anyone of us can go to Jesus to be saved...... ANYONE. No matter how much you or I dislike their beliefs or lifestyle..... It's not up to us and we should stop trying to make it so.

Are Christians Required to Tithe?

2010-10-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is a question that most christians ask themselves.... especially after they've been beat over the head with Malachi by their pastors. Malachi is a "goto" in organized religion to persuade congregations to tithe more freely. The book and they way pastors use it play on two powerful human emotions. One is human kinds predisposition towards feelings of guilt.... and the other is are almost uncontrollable desire to see -undeserved benefits.... I.E. risk taking on investments..... Pastoral staff at most churches rarely gloss over the part of Malachi where he states that you will see wild increases beyong anything you can imagine if you just pony up your ten percent.

But what your pastors says and what the Bible says are two different things... (hopefully not too often).

The fundamental principle that underpins Christianity as a whole is idea that Jesus of Nazareth was a human incarnation of God, who chose to walk among us and live a perfect, spotless existence. In doing so he fulfill the requirements of the Levitical Lawat and at the end of his life was crucified on the cross to take away the burden of our sins and reconnect us in communion with God by removing our personal responsibility for those sins.

Jesus fulfilled "The Law" as they call it.... the Levitical Law... the Mosaic Law... whatever you want to call it, Jesus the Christ, fulfilled it. Every last requirement. And in doing so he released us from the burden of the law. This is the whole reason that we have freedom in Christ, because he "takes away" the sins of man, not merely covers them. The law is/ was an objective representation of our conscience and the Ten Commandments were/ are the foundations of morality upon which the law was built.

Look at it this way..... In the Law there are a dozens of requirements that Jews were required to meet. They were required to slaughter bulls, rams, goats and lambs for things such as sin offerings, guilt offerings, fellowship offerings, grain offerings, as a way to cleanse their wives after their menstrual period, as a way to heal themselves from infectious diseases, and sandwiched in between all these outmoded rituals was a practice called tithes where members of Judea gave 10% of everything they "possesed" so that the priests of the church could provide for the needs of the society. In this same part of Leviticus it talks about how land owners would establish the prices for slaves.... But that isn't a practice that we have carried with us.

Now one important point to be aware of is that Israel at this time was a theocracy, which means that the priests were the governing body. They assessed property value, the established law and order, they were the makers of the law and the judges of the law and they required 10% as a way to meet the needs of the community..... It was really the first documented income tax and most biblical scholars and pastors agree/ admit that this is the case.

The other big problem is that if in the modern church, we are still "required" to tithe and are "robbing God" if we are not, then we really haven't been freed from sin. We are still subject to the law and are not under grace and are therefore guaranteed nothing in Christ.....If that is the case then we really have nothing to be celebrating about in the first place.

This is where pastors start saying that just because we are free from the law doesn't mean we commit murder and adultery....... that is true..... but the Ten Commandments are moral imperitives...... The Law is not...... And no where in the Ten Commandments does it say anything about tithes and offerings...... as a matter of fact, both Jesus and the Apostle Paul worked actively to break the habits of people of practicing legalism...... Paul never took as single dollar as a church leader..... the greatest pastor in the history of mankind worked a 9 to 5 job saving up money at his day job until he had the money to go out on the road and preach the word..... He did this to counteract a growing movement in the church of church leaders demanding tithes from their congregations.....in order that they may be "vocational" leaders. Jesus repeatedly chastised priests for giving their tithes and offerings without giving of their heart.

So are we required to tithe? The short answer is no! We are no more required to tithe than we are required to slaughter a bull at the tent flaps of the church or lock our wives away for a week while they are unclean on their menstrual period..... And this is not just my position, this is the position of most Biblical scholar foundations (Moody's, the Nazarenes, and so on) In fact the only people who seem to contend that titheing is still a requirement are people who gain their livlihood from it.... Biblical scholars say no..... non-vocational pastors say no..... but vocational pastors overwhelmingly agree that tithes are still neccesary..... Why is this? Because even church leaders have their hearts wrapped around material goods..... And this brings me to the more important point.
God want our hearts not our money...... Pastors like to say that God doesn't need our money, he has all the money he wants..... Yeah theres that and the fact that he exist in another dimension of time and space where US Currency doesn't do him much good..... God doesn't care about the money.... What he cares about are our hearts..... He wants our hearts centered around him..... Giving should be done joyfully, with no requirements on it, and doesn't need to be directed at a church if we don't want it to..... In the Book of Acts they took collections but only to provide for the needy, impoverished, orphans and widows..... Not to supports large salary's of the disciples.

Giving is neccesary only so that our hearts are torn from our lecherous relatonship with money. To free us from this form of bondage so that we can use that open space in our heart to commit even more deeply and more intimately to our relationship with God. Giving is a good tool to teach us dependence on God and not on money, but we are not required to give it to some church. The New Testament seems to showcase a giving where we give to the needy, the lame, the broken and the sick..... Not to leaders of churches and denominational pillars within churches. And when these pastors break out old Malachi to beat the congregation over the head again.... ask them to do a verse by verse, week by week study on the book..... In all my years sitting in churches, and listening to pastors.... I have never heard of any pastor doing an in depth study on Malachi.-

But at the end of the day..... If you are not living under grace...... you are still in bondage to sin...... If you are not free from the law..... then Jesus failed in his mission. If we must still tithe.... then the good shepard did not complete his work..... Give out of joy.... and give out of gratefulness for what you have..... but never out of obligation. Because that is a lie..... a lie perpetrated by the church on the people for two thousand years..... and it's about time someone call church leaders on the carpet.

Evolution & Genesis

2010-10-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

There is a sweeping percentage of the world population that has accepted a lie. The lie is that evolution finally and forever discredits the ideas put forth in the Bible. The idea is that since macro evolution is a scientifically supported theory.... (although still falling short of being a law) is takes precedence over and conflicts with the ideas set forth in the first book of the Bible....Genesis.

Religious people are fighting this fight fervently.... They believe that evolution is a tool of the Devil and that if children are taught evolution that spirituality in this country and world wide will die.... They have a literal interpretation of the Bible and therefore see the two concepts....i.e creationism, and evolution, as being incompatible.... Darwin was a Christian! Many of his peers were frustrated by the fact that religion controlled scientific discovery in the late 1800's. They fought against the oppressive nature of a fundamentalist, literally interpretative church which discredited any scientific discovery that did not fit neatly in there interpretation of the Bible. But at the end of the day Darwin never felt that his discovery discredited Biblical creationism.

Now there are dozens of issues underlying this.... The problem of how life came into being from nothing. The statistical chances of this happening out of shear circumstance are like me going to play the Lottery and hitting the jackpot a dozen times in a row.... There are issues with how the universe just arbitrarily exploded into existence out of nothing, with not only a power and ferocious level of energy incomprehensible to the human mind, but in a perfectly tuned way so that physical laws were established that enabled the universe to exist and support life rather than collapse in on itself. Matter and antimatter were colliding, hot gases were churning in a superheated explosion, and yet matter established a stable structure over anti-matter, this super mega explosion seemed "perfectly tuned" and "strong forces" came into existence which were able to bind positively and negatively charged particles together to create the building blocks for everything we know.

Now I won't go into all these timeless questions....yet.... but I will say that it seems incomprehensible that such a godlike explosion and creation of the entire universe could occur and take place in perfect order by random circumstance..... The effect was our universe, our galaxy, our solar system, and our planet..... but from what cause? It just randomly happened one day?

What I want to try to convey that most Christians miss is that not only do evolution and Genesis compliment each other, but they seem to reinforce one another. Lead Scientist for the "Human Genome Project" Francis Collins wrote that scientist have climbed the mountain of truth to overcome ignorance for hundreds of years and as they reach a certain peak, they ascend the top of the mountain victorious only to find a camp of theologians sitting there who have known these very same things to be true for hundreds of years.

First what one must do is look at the Bible, it's nature, it's language, it's meaning and it's purpose and ask oneself..... Is all of this really supposed to be taken literally? I don't think so, in fact if you read the Bible, you discover that it is largely comprised of riddle, simile, and metaphor and for Christians to not lend the Bible poetic license is the book of Genesis a travesty that has done Christianity more harm than anything else.

Did God create the entire universe in 6 days? He could have, but I believe that Genesis, just like dozens of other books in the Bible, is a symbolic representation of God's perspective

Look at it this way. How does Genesis break down creation?

1. He created the universe - It was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep
2. He said let there be light..... AKA The Big Bang
3. He created water over the entire surface of the earth and created the sky (Most scientist agree that at it's beginning, the earth was covered with water, and obviously the sky could mean our atmosphere.
4. Let dry ground appear - Still in tune with scientific models
5. Vegetation - vegetation goes all the way down to algae and bacteria... which most scientists agree were the first organisms present on Earth (We are still in line with evolutionary biologists at this point)
6. God allowed sunshine over the earth ( a key component in life developing into a more complex organism)
7. Water born animals (nearly every single evolutionary scientist agrees that complex non-vegetation organisms were likely first found in the water)
8. Let birds fly across the expanse of the sky and great creatures of the sea..... Most scientists trace dinosaurs back to birds, and they were obviously reptilian as well..... so this is still in line with evolutionary models
9. Let the land produce livestock and wild animals along the ground (finally mammals and other land born complex lifeforms are created.
10. God creates man.

See how if you don't twist up the book of Genesis with literal interpretation, it comes alive with the truth..... We could probably look at the story of Adam and Eve through the same perspective.... Did a snake really talk to Eve and encourage her to eat fruit from this specific tree in this specific garden? Probably not, but you could look at the story and see it as a story of man's enlightenment.... We are considered special among animals because of our tremendous mental capacity, and right in the first book there is a story of how man was made different from all creation because he what? Ate from the tree of......wait for it......wait for it.... KNOWLEDGE.

The Bible is telling us something far more profound than we are hearing, and because of our small mindedness we are not getting the most out of it...... In today's modern age, it speaks volumes about the Bible that after thousands of years, scientific and intellectual discovery cannot discredit it...... It truly is an anvil upon which society has hammered away for centuries, and though many a man has hammered away, the Bible still stands as relevant and important as it did in the beginning.

Christians get themselves in trouble when they oversimplify the message of the Bible. The concept that this book is the living word of God means it is far more complex than we truly understand. It cannot be taken at face value. God's penchant for speaking in parable means that talking snakes, gardens with trees of knowledge, Red Seas parting, men being carried in a fish's mouth, and men carrying every living thing on a boat during a storm might have much more profound meanings than we lend them.

Evolution doesn't discredit the Bible.... Quite the contrary. It vindicates it. But only to those who have open minds..... All the rest can continue to argue about what should be taught in schools and continue to fight in the political realm for equal representation..... I will take comfort in the fact that my science based mentality, my skeptical viewpoint was actually turned to belief by the facts stated in Genesis..... Where most see the largest conflict, I found the most clear harmony.

Go Figure.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

2010-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

Many churches devote a large amount of their sing song worship and christianese language to "binding" the devil who caused them to be late for work getting them trapped in a traffic jam or in the little fender bender.... "Lying devil" or caused that electrical fire that burnt up their kitchen.... 'Lying Devil'!

Sadly this oversimplification of our enemy trivializes the battle that we are engaged in. We are engaged in a battle against spirits of darkness that rule the air.... even more so than Verizon.... Wait Big Red? Could Verizon be the Devil? That's why I was over billed last month.... Lying Devil!

The point is that we are in a constant fight against an enemy that wants to devour us and spends literally every minute of every day seeking ways to stumble us in our walk of faith. People have clung to feel good warm and fuzzy messages.... The prosperity movement and the Joel Osteen self help way of looking at God.... 'Just say these words and your life will become whole bunches better'.... ' Salvation means big bank and a smooth road for the rest of our lives'..... No every inch we move closer to God, that much more the enemy intensifies his attacks.

In Genesis the enemy did not tell Eve... Go eat that apple.... That apple is delicious..... It taste's great..... Nothing like that, all he did was speak into Eve the idea that what God has commanded isn't as important as she might believe it to be..... So Eve stared down the enemies first temptation... the apple "Pleasing to the eye" which had all the trappings of modern temptations..... aka that good looking guy down the street who his home while your man is away... that hot little number in the miniskirt at work that stays late just like you do while your girl is at home cooking..... Those forbidden things that the devil doesn't out and out tell us to go after, he just plants seed.... "It won't hurt him/ her if they don't find out"... or maybe just taking a five minute fantasy break to cheat in your mind...... all of a sudden you've given an inch.

When she ate it she did so because the enemy had told her that even though God has said this, she didn't need to take him that seriously..... When God found out what Adam and Eve did, they performed the first cop out in history.... 'She made me eat it'..... 'The serpent told me to'..... And God punished them regardless of their excuse.

Humanity may live under the protection of Jesus work... which is enough, but a master thief, a master liar with a level of cunning unlike anything we can imagine just wants you to give one inch ideologically. When you do that, he can begin constructing a stronghold.... A stronghold that can and will cause you to sin. The sin can and will be forgiven by God (which is the idea that most reformed churches like to reinforce) but the stronghold will continually drive you further and further from God seeking the saturation, satiation and fulfillment of your own desires and lusts until you throw off any pretension of obedience and forsake God for your won worldly desires.

God's work is perfect and complete.... Jesus came and did a final work.... he reestablished a hard line... a true communicative relationship with a God that we had been separated from by sin..... But faith on it's own falters and though churches want to pack the seats by preaching a cheerful message of happiness and joy.... the Devil is constantly at work seeking a foothold... When he gets it, you may not even realize it and by the time he has driven you far from God... you will not even recognize where you went wrong or if you even have gone wrong.... But make no mistake good has it's counterpart.... and it is fully engaged in the battle everyday of our lives.... It didn't cause you to get stuck in that traffic jam today... but it may have helped you react to the traffic by cursing, swearing and acting out of selfishness.... cutting off other cars or acting belligerent to other drivers.

Simplifying the battle and blaming the enemy for objective realities does nothing to stave off his attacks.... It is a war fought in the spiritual realm and our only defense is to cling to God.... for darkness only exists when there is an absence of light just as evil can only operate in areas where God is absent.

The Father, Son & Holy Spirit are our only defense.

The Incomplete Work?

2010-09-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Jesus dies as a final "sin offering" on the passover....a final sacrificial lamb that was slaughtered to banish our iniquities..... Jesus during his earthly ministry, fulfilled the Levitical (Mosaic) law and died as a final offering before God to reconnect us to God through the Holy Spirit and to do away with the burden of the law....an objective representation of our conscience or the Moral Law..... and in doing so eliminated the practice of sin offerings, guilt offerings, fellowship offerings, grain offerings..... and tithes..... Wait a minute we still tithe don't we?

Sadly even though Jesus did fulfill the law, humanity still loves money....whether they are vocational lawyers or vocational preachers and evangelists..... 2000 years later not another single remnant of the levitical law is practiced..... But walk in to any Church on Sunday and within the first ten minutes after the music is over, they are passing around a basket for tithes and offerings.

This is not because Jesus work was incomplete..... it is because even preachers, pastors and priests have their hearts wrapped around money.

Divine or Not Divine.....That is the Question

2010-09-26T14:28:00.000-07:00

The single biggest question mark for any person who has even the slightest bit of skepticism when considering the Christian Manifesto is whether or not Jesus was just an enlightened, visionary man, or if he actually was the Son of God and the third part of the Trinity.

In the modern world it is virtually impossible to substatiate his claim because he is not here for us to question nor does God exist in our three dimensional world allowing us to point to supernatural occurences that substantiate his existence. Christians are quick to point out nuaces of their own life which seem to showcase miraculous intervention by a supernatural being and they often point to the sensation they encounter during prayer and evidence of Jesus divine nature. But these "miracles" can often be swept aside as having a realistic, pedestrian cause and the so called "holy spirit" that people claim to encounter when deeply pressed into prayer is a phenomena that also seems to be commonplace in non-religious excersizes like meditation and deep introspection. Rather we need to look more closely at what evidence we do have and use that as a vehicle to establish a REASONABLE answer rather than a waxy, dreamy eyed answer based in flawed, biased logic. Since the only historical accounts we have of Jesus are the Gospels and they are pretty much lacking in objectivity, the next best things is to look at those who most closely knew him.

The disciples were an interesting lot.... Throughout the 4 Gospels of the Bible they are described as severely flawed, selfish people who repeatedly in the midst of Jesus' amazing miracles are seen debating selfish interests. But there is a large body of historical documentation relating to these men that we can use as a guide.

Each of these men were shown to be cowards, selfish, and weak in the eyes of danger..... Simon who was the most loyal and enthusiastic of Jesus disciples, feared so much the retribution that he would face once Jesus was captured that he denied knowing him to a young child...... That is cowardice.

But Jesus told them plainly that he would die and that he would rise on the third day conquering death and ridding society of the guilt and shame associated with sin.....doing away with the requirements of the Mosaic Law.....So these men who followed him would essentially pin all their hopes on whether or not Jesus did in fact come back from the dead..... Now there are numerous conflicting accounts about what transpired after Jesus died..... A demonic Hollywood producer recently developing a fictomentary (a fictional documentary) stating that the disciples attacked the Roman guards at Jesus tomb, made off with his body and started the single greatest hoax in history......

At this point it is important to look at what happened after Jesus left the Earth.....once Jesus was gone and was no longer there to speak strength and power into these men, they eached were tortured and killed (sans one) for not denying Jesus divine nature..... Now I know the mindset behind developing a hoax......and I know that if one is attemptin to pull something of this nature off, one does not allow the authorities to render your skin from your body piece by agonizing piece and then burn you at the stake unless you were so conviced that Jesus was the son of God you were willing to die for the belief..... Now I know where the aetheist goes from here..... They point to modern hoaxes like the Halebob Comet cult or Jerry Jones who led his people to drink poison out of belief in his sham.... This shows that people are gullible and when under the influence of a powerful, charismatic personality will die for that person..... But the problem is that Jerry Jones put the cup in each persons hand, told them to drink, and reassured them that he would see them in paradise shortly...... In the case of the disciples, Jesus was long gone.... he wasn't there to support them as they endured horid torture, and he never even told them that they should die for him..... Rather all they had to hold onto was whatever they had seen happen with Jesus and what had transpired after he died..... because all their hope (and our hope) is pinned on what transpired after he was crucified..... Whatever took place, we will never know, but we do know that the eye witnesses were willing to endure unspeakable torture and finally death for the man who had promised that he would rise on the third day.

This one little nugget speaks to the mindset of the disciples..... You can read the Gospels with a grain of salt and a skeptical eye..... and easily right it off.... but when you consider that the men who wrote and played parts in the Gospels were each tortured and slaughtered for believing in this man that was long gone by the time they met death..... one has to acknowledge that they must have seen something powerful in order to sustain under those circumstances.

This is item one.... we'll discuss more as we go along, and we will also discuss how the church cheats believers and discuss just how ugly the modern church has become.......I hope you enjoy and please subscribe.