Ah, the sweet smell of discernment
Posted on September 26th, 2006 by Samaritan into the Uncategorized categoryThe Father's House Church is an MFI affiliate in Vacaville, California, pastored by Dave and Donna Patterson.
Here's a snippet of what 24 year old Mitchell has to say about it in his MySpace Blog :
So in the past I have been aprehensive of going to social functions when members of "The Father's House" church have been there. While they are all nice people I have always felt that not only do they take parts of the Bible way out of context, it seems like they often make a mockery out of praying. Maybe I don't understand their experiences, but I do feel deep down that they have warped prayer
… Alone or in small groups, everybody is friendly, but when in numbers the "Holier than thou" complex reared its ugly head … I was discouraged that they all thought that they were somehow better or closer to God because they went to "The Father's House."
… There are more important things in life than getting "drunk in the spirit," and some of you take that to sad extremes.
Listening to people talk though reminded me of why I haven't been to church in awhile and why I will NEVER go to "The Father's House."
Thank you Mitchell, for your candid remarks and spot on discernment. You are not alone, son.
Sam
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September 27th, 2006 at 10:53 am
As the writer of this blog I would like to why this was put on this site and rearranged, thanks.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Mitchell,
Because we thought you made a good point, and we wanted to share it with others.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Greetings Mitchell,
Your public blog entry turned up on a blog search engine, and I was impressed with your sense of discernment, your clear reverence for God, and your honesty.
Your’s are the type of comments that help other human casualties of MFI-affiliate churches by validating what they have experienced - the feelings they have. I’m hopeful that you find some comfort in knowing others have had experiences similar to yours at City Bible, City Church, Capital City, et al, all of which are MFI-affiliate churches.
I hope you’ll hang around awhile, read the blog, and contribute. There’s good people here who love the Lord like you do.
Sam
September 27th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Hi Mitchell,
Does this church have any kind of affiliation with Graham Cooke and The Potters House in the same area? If so what do know about them?
Does anyone out there notice that all MFI church’s basically have the same
quote ministires listed –like interns, teens and kids –there are never many extra curricular things going on except some mission trips here and there.
I challenge you to check out most MFI church calendars - extemely sparse for the numbers of people they have attending.
Imagine our shock and surprise when we visited other churchs in this area and couldn’t believe what all they had going on. The one we ended up at was absolutely dripping with fruit–we’d never
seen anything like it –ministry after ministry happening here and abroad and the Pastor absolutely refuses to talk about money, giving and hates manipulation of any kind. Our mouth’s dropped open at that one believe me!
TCR and I like to have people do the ‘bulletin test’ as a comparison or how about the web site comparison. If City Church is one of the largest with over 6000 people attending -what ministires do they have going on besides Prosperity w a purpose for the amount of people they have? Just something I’ve questioned as I check their websites–more revealing than anything I know. When you live in a cloistered community you have no idea what is going on outside your 4 walls.
September 27th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
The Potter’s House.. isn’t that a church attended predominantly/mostly/all by homosexual people? Led by a charismatic man who used to be a worship leader in the Assembly of God demonination?
September 27th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Wow that would be news to me –I know someone who just went there for some kind of training in the prophetic, but I’d like to find out the inside trak–they only discovered it on the internet then joined up–where is there a school on how to discern the true purpose behind an organization?!
September 27th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Wow that would be news to me –I know someone who just went there for some kind of training in the prophetic, but I’d like to find out the inside trak–they only discovered it on the internet then joined up–where is there a school on how to discern the true purpose behind an organization?!
Do you mean in Vacaville, CA? Are you from there and do you know of
Graham from England? tks
September 27th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Ya, at our new church Free kept saying in the first few months we were there “So THIS is what fruit looks like!” cuz we’d never really seen it before. It’s the kind of stuff Jesus talked about as important in the Bible like feeding the poor and giving a home to orphans in India (not that he said India exactly) and providing a way to learn how to deal with addictive behaviors etc.
What we’d seen at the MFI church we formerly attended had a lot to do with conferences and lots of praying in a small room (especially for the pastor family every day) and calling it work and probably freaking people like Mitchell out with bizarre behavior! It seems like only certain people feel comfortable there so it sort of hinders the growth they covet. It’s like they don’t know they are their own worst problem.
September 28th, 2006 at 4:56 am
The Potters House is in Dallas, TX, TDJakes presiding.
Graham Cook is in Vacaville now - used to be in England. I saw him the spring of 2001 at the Prophetic Conference in Kansas City, MO. Graham was pretty funny - a good speaker - he was saying “Both God and the devil are tryin’ to kill ya; God wants to kill off yer flesh so He can live thru ya; the devil wants to kill ya, period” or something like that. He also had a message on ‘hidden-ness and manifestation’ that helped me put words/explanation to something I’ve felt for years.
…
You know - I do wonder why it is that so many people who, when beginning to receive more of the Holy Spirit, wherein they begin to hear that “still small voice” of the Father, and He begins to teach them (read: replace dead religious teaching with His spiritual truth), declare themselves to be prophets, or prophetic?
What’s the label-thing all about? Or titles? I’ve read enough of the MFI church info pages now to see that they are all ‘5-fold’ ministry types (apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher), where the gifts and callings of God have been exalted to positions of ‘rulership’ over people. Yes, those are mentioned in Ephesians 4:11, but did God intend them to be taken as titles, wherein they are exalted above the Church?
God’s intent for ‘giving some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers’, is expressed in vs. 12-14 …
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (Ephesians 4:12-14 KJV)
Clearly, the intent of giving those gifts and callings is to produce the fruit of unity, to grow everyone in the Church to the fullness of Christ. Yet, the view of ‘apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher’ OVER the church, establishes a heirarchy wherein those beneath that heirarchy NEVER grow to that maturity. And so it seems to me, that the so-called 5-fold ministers are NOT officers / overlords in the Church, but rather, are simply brothers with a gifting and calling to come along side believers and love them unto maturity.
I dunno about some of these guys - even though they seem to have a truthful message, it bugs me that they are caught up in the whole “church leadership” thing - and bill themselves (or allow others to labe them) as “prophets” or “apostles”, etc.
When I first started hearing that still small voice, and saw several brothers and sisters declare themselves to be “prophet/ess”, I was troubled by it and asked the Father “what am I”? Because my friends were all taking titles for themselves, I figured the Father would tell me something similar - but He said “would you settle for son?” And I was overjoyed at that.
If our understanding is that we’re all ’sons and daughters’, isn’t that more conducive to the unity that the Lord intends for us? But if one understands they are an ‘apostle’ and another a ‘prophet’, doesn’t that create a kind of separation or worse yet a pecking order that is not conducive to unity?
Just because I play and write music, doesn’t mean I want to be labeled (and thereby type-cast) as a “performing artist”, because I’m much more than that. Yet in the last couple churches I attended, I saw that “labeling” and “type-casting” thing happen to so many people. And I think that speaks somewhat to what Free and TCR have observed in churches - a kind of ‘compartmentalizing’ that splits the church off into sub-groups and functions, wherein people cease to be “sons and daughters” and are made into “functionaries”.
Perhaps the fruit you are seeing, is the result of people being more focused on the growth and unity and fullness of Christ, than they are upon the gifts of God that facilitate that growth.
“Thus sayeth the Lord”.
Jack
September 28th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I love it Jack! That kind of sums it up ~ function. I remember vividly (like the light went on) when I realized our former pastor perceived us as functions. He even called the households or couples in the church ‘units’. It felt rather hurtful and didn’t sit well with me since I’ve always been a relational kind of person.
I agree, the fruit we see now is because the focus is healthy with God’s original intent and no one is trying to be anything but who they are. And everyone seems to call each other by their first names which i find refreshing. No mention of units or eunichs.
If everyone in God’s family could settle for son or daughter that would certainly help rid us of the title syndrom. Even when I attended the former church the ‘prophets’ prophetesses’ kinda weirded me out. Of course, they would try to saddle up since my husband was in leadership. I just had nothing in common with them and couldn’t understand their whole motivation and reason for living. I mean, I’m not certain they were actively involved in any outside community touching the world so to speak. But maybe that was for the best…. I’m probably lumping them all togethr. I guess what I’m getting at is a person who speaks for God if he so chooses to speak through him or her, would certainly be a person motivated to love those without him and to want to make a difference in a lost world, rather than going off on all the long-winded stuff I remember them going off on.
In fairness, I have to say there was one lady who I still know today who has a gift of phophecy who isn’t asking or never was asking for a title. Every thing I remember her saying was compelling and affected where we were living then. Alas, she’s one of our refugees now. And she mentioned our exit was going to happen about 2 years ago before it happened when neither she or any of ‘us’ were planning on it.
September 28th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Jack –as usual you hit the nail on the head. I was given a title and it became who I was in ministry and as a person. It was just one function I had so it became my identity there. No wonder people didn’t know what to do with me when I left and would run into me — ‘you look like the same person-maybe you are the same person.’ How freeing its been just to sit and relearn everything. I love
settling for being a daughter –thanks for your thoughts and ‘revelations’
I’ve gotten more laughs from this blog than I ever thought possible from
wackwolrd as we affectionately began to call it. we’re slowly turning our friends and other refugees onto this site if they pass the litmus test of wanting to detox from the old world.
Thanks for the vacaville info —sounds like quite the place! TCR and I will stay far away from all of it I can assure you.
September 28th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Free AT Last said:
Reminds me of a movie, let me see, what was it; oh ya! Stepford Wives! That movie came to mind often in former world and still does when I think of former world.