August 22, 2008
Gigachurches
I’ve naively thought that the megachurch was as big as it gets. Now I’m reading about the gigachurch – churches with nationwide video outlets of more than 100,000 followers. TV evangelists have long competed for the stay-at-home believer’s support, but I have a feeling we haven’t seen anything yet. Can you imagine the celebrity preachers of all theses gigachurches competing for the viewer’s, time, money and undivided loyalty? No doubt one of these ministers will rise to the top of the heap and be ‘greater’ than all the others. Already it’s reported that one of these preachers comes to his satellite congregation in the form of a life-sized, 3-D hologram. Left Behind here we come…
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3 comments:
Gail;
----The heap these megachurch preachers try to rise above is the rest of the megachurch preachers, who of course rose to the top of the “ordinary” preachers, who themselves rose up from the sea of little parishioners. So there will come one gigachurch preacher who, in that sense, will have risen up out of the sea. OK. That sounds interesting, but technically, it is not a fit. The beast risen up from the sea will be a governmental type. The beast risen up from the earth, having two horns, being the false prophet, will be the religious type. I certainly would not want to say that Rick Warren, who, more than anyone, has risen above the rest, is the false prophet. I happen to love very much most of what Rick Warren stands for, because most of what he stands for is Jesus Christ.
-----But there is a stripe on these gigachurch preachers and their gigachurch groupies that, like a stripe on a shirt, does not seem to proceed from the other stripes or end in them, either. That stripe is similar to one of the stripes belonging to the beast upon which the great harlot was sitting (Rev 18). That beast was, and is not, and was to come again out of the bottomless pit. Having seven heads and ten horns, it is obviously the one world government of the antichrist’s short lived kingdom. Its time during the tribulation is the second of only two times this government ever exists on earth. The first time was before God confused the languages of men and scattered their families across the earth. All men of the world were under the control of a single leadership. Their attempt to make a name for themselves and a security against another possible wipe-out from the hand of God demonstrates how off track a gigantic mob gets when in the control of one. The brain looses touch with the root, and the root with the brain. Erroneous thinking not only gets duplicated, it gets magnified.
-----I do not think God wants this stripe of “giga-size” in His church. Mega-size is corruptive enough. Just because the Christian confesses his sins to the Lord and humbles himself to the Word does not mean he is now immune from making errors in his thinking or in his deeds. And that goes double for church leaders. I do not think God wants man’s errors cloned hundreds of thousands of times amongst His people. Like the families of the nations, I think God wants lots of variety in the viewpoints of the church, because we all see dimly as in a mirror. The strength of some will compensate for the weakness of others, and together the church will be healthier when the leadership stays in the humble home, so to speak, with the minions.
Love,
Steve Corey
Oops Steve, I didn’t mean to imply that these celebrity evangelists might be the beast. I was just taking off on all the technology - which is filtering down into the church even as we speak. Who would have thought that in the church we’d have a life size, 3-D celebrity preacher being beamed live to the location near you?
I do appreciate your romp through end times though!
Gail
Gail;
----Years ago, I stopped seeing everything on this earth as homogenous. Within any Christian you discern carefully you will see some godliness and some ungodliness. Any law passed by a government does some good here, some harm there. Like grandmas have always said, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Every rainbow is made of rain. Two kingdoms occupy this world. The deeds we do belong to one kingdom or the other, but they cause an effect upon both. Although we ourselves belong to One Kingdom, it is only by His reckoning. For not all our deeds belong to that kingdom, some belong to the other. For those we are forgiven.
----We share in the nature of the King of our kingdom. But some of our deeds share in the nature of the beast of the other kingdom. Their effects certainly lay some cobbles in the path it needs to walk. That does not mean we are the beast, nor that we ourselves share in his nature. But we can not dismiss the truth that some of our deeds are of its substance. I wrote in this vein, and I hoped I had made it clear that I was not meaning these evangelists were the beast. I hoped I had made it clear they shared a stripe with the beast, that is, they were partaking in one of the beasts many errors: the influence of one flawed leadership over multitudes of people. God needs all of His people to be diverse in their skills and relationships with Him. The beast needs their individuality crushed and their discerning faculties given over to him. Though not to the same degree, the tele-evangelist, the gigachurch preacher, the megachurch preacher, even the popular preacher of the church next door needs the individuals to become more like himself, their relationships with the Lord more like his own, their interests more inline with his, so he can grow his church, do his work, build his empire. Though God actually commissioned them to influence the children into becoming more like He intended their selves in Him, their relationships more like their own with Him, their interests more like what the Spirit has given to each - that they missed this point - does not make them the beast. It alone does not subject them to the beast’s kingdom. It is merely a stripe similar to one of the beast, an idiocy useful to the beast, as are all of our errors. But we are not the beast.
Love,
Steve Corey
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