I recently posted about how all is not well in the Purpose Driven movement. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal. Now, Bellevue Baptist Church which Adrian Rogers was the pastor of until his death, may soon be splitting because of the Purpose Driven movement. This is happening at churches all over. Rick Warren's attitude is basically if there are some who don't agree with you, get rid of them. So, many people in churches who are opposed to some of the new methods, music etc. that pastor's who are "Purpose Driven" are trying to implement, are just pushed aside or thrown out of the church altogether.
Case in point, yesterday I received an email called "Monday Morning Insight." This is a weekly email for pastors. This week's edition featured one of the keynote addresses from the Innovative Church Church conference. This address was by Perry Noble pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson S.C. It was entitled "NewSpring's Four Step Strategy: Engage, Enlarge, Endure, Enable."
All in all, I suppose the article was pretty good, but what struck me about it was the following from the second point "Enlarge":
Perry said, “We (NewSpring) get criticized for being all about numbers. You better believe we’re about numbers. Numbers represent souls.” He also made a big point that at NewSpring, they are far more concerned about who’s coming into the church rather than who’s leaving through the backdoor. He said he has people all the time telling him they need to shut the ‘backdoor’. “Don’t shut the backdoor of the church, Perry says… The church is a body. You shut the back door and you’ve got problems. You need a Holy Spirit enema.” He mentioned that they lose a lot of ‘steeple people’ at his church. And he said if you’re doing things right, there’s a real chance for ‘offending the Pharasees’. (bold emphasis mine)Why is it that because there are some who are "steeple people" who are offended by his methods that they are "Pharasees." Am I the only one who grows tired of people labeling others "Pharasees" when that individual doesn't agree with them?
Anyways, this has become the mentality of many who have become "Purpose Driven." If they don't agree with you, just show them the door...something about this mentality just doesn't seem right to me.
I don't mean to be critical or harsh. It's just that I'm afraid at times we have become so consumned with church growth and the latest fads and fashions of the church growth movement that we blindly go after every new movement or method in order to grow the church. I also don't mean to be overly critical of Rick Warren. Again, many things he has done or said I would label as good. It's just I see too many things about this "movement" that I believe are leading the Church down the wrong path.
Hey Todd,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. The purpose of my post wasn't really to be critical of Perry, I tried to make this clear, but perhaps I failed to.
The thing that bothers me is how we can just blow away people who don't agree with our agenda. I used the quote from that email to illustrate this.
While I agree that there are some issues like the color of the carpet that are no big deal, I feel like leadership and music are entirely different matters. To just shove people aside and label them "Pharasees" because they disagree is wrong.
Since when was it okay to just throw "valuable, God fearing Christians" aside because they "don't fit the mission and values of the church"?
Obviously you can't always please everyone, and at times people are going to disagree or become upset at leadership. What I'm concerned about is when leaders become dicators.
Pastors are really supposed to be Shepherds who will leave the 99 to go after the one. Not kick people aside because they don't agree with you.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteI am a Bellevue Member. Please don't believe what you read on a website about Bellevue and Rick Warren. We are not part of the purpose driven movement nor are we splitting. We just have a few people who have a bone to pick and haven chosen the internet to gossip.
Every thing these few folks have alleged has been discussed before the congregation.
As we say in the south "nuff said"
Sometimes we need to listen to those who "don't fit". Seems to me the author Francine Rivers hit the nail on the head in her book "And the Shofar Blew ". The "Purpose Driven" pastor disregarded any "Old Fashion" advice and in the end it was his own down fall.
ReplyDeletesay
Leave 99 to go after 1? I think you are severly misquoting that text. The "1" is actually that, a lost soul. You don't abandon 99 church folk that love God and worship in your church for the 1 God fearing person that doesn't like that children in elementary school have their own service. If someone disagrees with your church's philosophies, yet thousands of others enjoy and have come to Christ because of your presentation...do you change to please that one, saved and cleansed Christian?
ReplyDeletePerry's point is this: If what we're doing gets unchurched, non Christians into the doors to see Christ, Newspring doesn't mind upsetting small town church members with their assigned seats and organ music.
The very nature of your post is critical of Newspring/Perry's message, so it doesn't really make rational argumental sense to try and shrug it off with "Well the point of my post wasn't to criticize...". Jesus upset the deeply religious to sit and eat with the sinners. Do we become like Jesus...or change to accomodate the already saved with personal preference agendas?
Well Shoot. I went back and read some more and this is what Perry had to say about handling critical church folk. I wouldn't have wasted our time had I read this first!
ReplyDeleteI have had several conversations over the past week with people who come to NewSpring. These talks have began with them telling me how much Jesus is doing in their lives, and how thankful they are for our church. When these conversations take place, I ALWAYS ask, "So how did you wind up coming to NewSpring for the first time?" The answers I have gotten over the past week have all been...
"Well, I heard so many negative things about this church that I wanted to come and check it out for myself."
"I wanted to come and see what the cult was about."
"You guys were growing so fast that I knew you had to be doing something wrong--so I came to see what kind of screwed up theology you were teaching."
"Well, my kids loved it...and I figured that if my kids loved church that you guy HAD to be doing something wrong."
So it hit me like a ton of bricks last night--don't fight with negative people. Don't argue with people who are "going off" on our church--let them talk...because--GOD IS USING ANGRY, BITTER Christians who think they are tearing down His church to actually build it up. Isn't that awesome?
Right now there are hundreds of people who had heard so many bad things. came to see for themselves, and have been engaged by Jesus at some point in the service and are now more in love with Him than ever before.
So let them talk...let them say we do not teach the Bible...and when someone comes to see it for themselves they will realize that have been listening to a foolish person who has no idea what they have been talking about. Let them say that we do not care about children...and when they come they will see that we put just as much time, energy, and money into our kids than just about anything else in our church. (Except for the "statue fund," of course!)
If people are talking about our church--whether it is positive or negative--at least they are talking about church...and God is using that to draw people here and change their lives. So it's not a bad thing. I usually say to people who have something negative to say, "Have you ever been?" The answer is usually "no." And then I reply, "You ought to check it out something." And then leave it all in the Lord's hands. No fights...no arguments...just put out the invitation and let it go.
Some folks have made some good comments on this post over at my test site at http://jongearls.wordpress.com/2006/09/26/purpose-driven-problems/#comment-348
ReplyDeleteThe Wordpress site is just a trial site. I've been considering switching to Wordpress, but haven't made the complete jump yet.
Thanks for commenting!