February 15, 2008
They're Coming
When going to the movies you often see previews of coming attractions. At one time the slogan was, ‘Coming soon to a theater near you’. Whether through training seminars, printed materials or video presentations, the mega church influence is coming soon to a church near you. It’s not surprising that mega church trends and philosophies filter down and seep into mid-size churches, but I hadn’t thought about them walking through the front door in the form of transplants. In our mobile society we can expect to inherit members from Willow Creek, Saddleback and Lakewood. I think it would behoove us to learn what these churches are teaching and preaching, whether it’s the milk or the meat of the Word.
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Gail;
-----“Whether it is the milk or the meat of the Word,” you ponder. Maybe I have not overcome my cynical nature as much as I should, because I ponder something a bit more toxic. People always have moved from church to church. But in the good old days, the normal tendency was to find a church of a better fit to your understandings. Today, these little Rick Warren knock-offs circulate around with pompous attitudes. Their mind is to change the church they find.
-----Now that would not be all bad if the change involved Scripturally defined improvement. For such improvement of ourselves we have been called to make. It is our spiritual growth. But all Scriptural points become personalized as each of us try to find a valid understanding of them. These personalized understandings are those that Paul tells us to keep between ourselves and God when they cause mutual tension and stress. Within the environment of taking interest in each other’s interests, pleasing each other for each other’s good and edification, and generally doing good to one another, holding your own understandings to yourself allows the mind of the church to be true to who are the church, and the unity to be genuine in peace. The effects of the Holy Spirit can then move about freely through interactions that no longer are tainted by the fever of ulterior motive.
-----For Satan originated care for the self and its things. If we were to go into the church holding our own ideas as important for everyone else to learn and live by, then we are trying to spread ourselves. Understand Rick Warren’s attitude. He is the one who determined that he had to retrain all the preachers of the world. Analyze the basic thought. Rick trains everyone. Rick’s ideas preside. Rick’s self propagates. “Oh! Steve! But he is doing it for the Lord!” I am sorry folks, I grew up around ulterior motives. I can smell them even through the veil of a concrete wall. When I get its whiff, I go straight to it and deal with it face to face. If Rick Warren were about spreading the Gospel he would be about perpetuating the attitudes of the new life. The attitude of the new life is not, “I have a better way to worship. You will do as I say.” That is Satanic self absorption. And as such, these little Rick Warren knock-offs strut around as though they have reached some higher understanding of God that lends themselves to the better seats in any church, from where their own better ways can take root in you.
-----But it was Jesus Christ who had a better way. He came with two things for this world. Most basically, He brought into this system of self-servitude the new mind for others-servitude. That is not the mind of letting others serve, either. It is the mind for serving others. A mind for seeing their needs as expressed by their conditions and their understandings. “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you,” Jesus said. (Mat 7:9-12). Would you want to be given a tuba if you needed a clarinet? I have seen parents like that. If their child wants a blue shirt, he will have to suffer with a purple one because his parents think something more of purple than of blue. Well so what to what the parents think! It was not the parents doing the needing, it was the child. Why should the child be stuffed into the parent’s scruples simply because they have a seat of responsibility and authority. Of course, if the shirt was for a social event of purple only, then the parents would not be serving selfish ulterior motive in giving purple. Rather, they would be caringly considering the child’s interests. That is the other thing Jesus brought into the World, the will of His Father. And not His will as seen or somehow communicated through some church official, but the actual will of His Father known through the Word He gave us. So, it is His will that says whether or not there is a requirement for purple and the shunning of blue, not the church leader.
-----Well then, we have been told that the Rick Warrenization of our churches is for our own good. Yet the Word of God does not even insinuate the philosophies and practices of the mega-church, let alone teach them. Therefore what has made this form of doing church such a purple social event that all the mommies and daddies of Rick Warrenism won’t let anyone else have their blue shirts? And to the mommies and daddies the purple shirt may not look like a stone or feel like a snake, but to the child who understands blue, not purple, it sure certainly does! Then, how good is this gift born by the wandering Warrener? It is nothing more than a thing done his way - vain conceit.. A demand upon you, which is not love. In this battle ground of spiritual good and evil, not-good is evil.
-----I tell you truly, motive is Jesus Christ and others around you. Ulterior motive is, “Serve them my way.” Jesus taught to look at “them“, Satan taught to look at self. If there was any looking at “them” would there not be some seeing of things “their” way, some understanding of “their” way, and some doing of “their” way? Test the messages in your church and of the newcomers for ulterior motive. Don’t let it be. For it is the toxic substance of the self.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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