Monthly Archives: February 2007

Another Member Embarrassed by City Bible

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I appreciate City Bible members who can attend the church and still disagree with the leadership.

Fittingly, here is a comment from a long time member of CBC, who still likes the church, but was embarrassed when she brought her boyfriend to a Faith Harvest Sermon.

The Sunday that we went was the one with this particular Faith Harvest message. 

I was OK with the sermon and am use to PF’s little anecdotes — admittedly I have a soft spot for him as his children are my friends and they have been like family to me. But the second he said that their was a Faith Harvest GOAL — I was completely mortified. I was embarrassed that I had exposed my boyfriend to something that was initially positive and uplifting and then turned out to be something quite different.

An offering should come from the heart — and there is no knowing in what way God is going to inspire someone to give.

It's nice to hear that people can attend CBC and still see through the lame pleas for more money. I would be more impressed if she would mention this to her elder. Simply saying, "Hey, you know what. I still love the church. But that last sermon embarrassed me in front of my boyfriend."

A Christian Presidential Candidate

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I know true Christian Democrats are as rare as pink unicorns, but it appears we may have found one.

Here is Presidential Candidate Barack Obama (the black guy) sharing how he accepted Christ:

The church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You need to come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it; you need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in your difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

I like it.

(Thanks Andrew)

What to expect from leadership

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In the wake of the Ted Haggard scandal, KariMichelle offers this thought about what she expects from leaders:

If I am going to follow anyone, damn it, they ought to be living a better life than me. It’s not enough to be gifted and have charisma! It’s not enough to be good looking, cool and hang with the IT crowd.

A leader should be living a holy life. I’m tired of a wishy-washy church where pastors are soft on other pastors because of their own sin, where the BOYS club protects one another and where the best a church can do for leadership is gossipy, immoral, leaders.

Sounds about right to me. And I would add that congregations need to do a better job holding their leadership accountable. Because when they don't, the church becomes just another lame church like City Bible.

It’s a Groundhog Day Miracle!

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You will be happy to hear that after a lifetime of homosexuality, Ted Haggard has been healed.

Ralph said three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed Arizona treatment center helped Haggard immensely and left Haggard sure of one thing.

"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting- out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."

Now if Haggard can only figure out what it was that made him have sex with men, then he can get back on that glorious road to heterosexuality. 

Apostles and Apostolic Churches

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Who gives anyone the designation of "apostle" or calls their church "apostolic"? Politically speaking, men and women who have big churches and plant other churches are many times looked at as "apostles" by their own local churches and growing movements. Sometimes, in the IC, the title is used to give prestige to the "founding" pastor of such a church or movement.  Unfortunately, in my view, the title apostle is being used to justify why a man or woman is at the top of an unbiblical hierarchical pyramid above others and why s/he is the one receiving the lion's share of salary, benefits, pulpit time and ministry opportunities. Believe it or not, there are some churches where the title "apostle" is actually posted on the office door. Graham Cooke, a prophetic ministry,  has observed that when he goes to speak at conferences, many "apostles" hand him their business card with the title "apostle" on it! Who and what the NT says is an apostle is a whole different matter…  

What is very scary about this question of "apostles" and their "apostolic churches" is that there is an entire "apostolic movement" afoot bringing Christians, pastors and churches under its influence! If you're interested in learning more about it (with many leaders named "apostles" and their churches entitled "apostolic", see: C. Peter Wagner's, The New Apostolic Churches (Regal). 

This is a huge subject and so I must restrain myself. I will quote a few lines from each of the books above to provide some sense of what Wagner thinks about these apostles and their churches and movements. In terms of your question above, note especially no. 4 below:

C Peter Wagner writes about "apostles:"
 "The five most crucial questions about apostolic ministry are: (1) What is an apostle? (2) Are there apostles today? (3) How important are apostles? (4) How does an apostle gain authority? (5) What are the qualities of a genuine apostle? (Churchquake, p. 3)

C. Peter Wagner writes about "apostolic churches:"
 "My experience as a church growth scholar has led me constantly to ask four crucial questions: (1) Why does the blessing of God rest where it does? (2) Churches are not all equal. Why is it at certain times, some churches are more blessed than others? (3) Can any pattern of divine blessing be discerned? (4) Do those churches that seem to be unusually blessed have any common characteristics? (The New Apostolic Churches, p. 16)

Much could be said here, but I'd just like to end my post by asking C. Peter Wagner, in light of the recent moral fall of his own pastor, Ted Haggard, if he would see the apostolic church government at his home church, New Life Church, which essentially had the senior pastor only submit to those outside of his local church, any differently now? C. Peter Wagner writes:

"My pastor, Ted Haggard, calls the operation of New Life Church a ‘pain-free church government.' The only decision in the hands of the congregation is to give final approval to the call of a senior pastor when a new one is eventually needed. The call is presumably for life. Meanwhile, the pastor names a board of trustees to look after the financial matters of the church and a board of elders to look after the spiritual ministry of the church. Both are named to support the vision of the senior pastor. Ted has an external board of overseers ‘nominated by the pastor and confirmed by the elders…' to whom he submits and holds himself accountable." (Churchquake, p. 101)

The lack of genuine accountability as seen in the above statement where senior pastor/apostles only submit to those OUTSIDE of their local body is spiritually and morally dangerous as well as unbiblical Dear Dr. Wager: It's great that you are "a church growth scholar," but after seeing how Ted deceived you and everybody at New Life Church for years and got away with it until recently (2006), I think that a church government structure that was a little less "pain-free" for God's people would have been much safer both for you, Ted and New Life church, don't you?

Submitted by David Mackin

Facing the Giants Review

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My old college roomate, Peter McClain, shares this excellent review of the film Facing the Giants: 

I'm a sucker for Christian movies although they are routinely among the most excruciating films that I watch each year.  However, when the American Family Association recently sent me a praising review for Facing the Giants I quickly added it to my Netflix queue and cautiously had high hopes for the movie.  And why not?  I read a good review, it had a high rating on Netflix from the 894 people who had seen it, and it was about football.  It didn't take long from the time I started the DVD before I realized I was severely deceived.

The acting was predictably poor.  Our protagonist's wife, a Cheryl Hines look-alike, had so little range in her acting ability that anytime she was called upon to show emotion she could only accomplish this by covering her face with her hands.  Her lines plodded along so slowly and she had such an awkward, southern accent that my wife and I regularly laughed out loud while she was delivering a heartfelt plea.  It didn't help that I kept expecting Larry David to walk in at any moment and he never did.

The movie itself is about the Shiloh Christian Academy football team and their head coach whose life when we meet him is straight out of a country song.  The team is terrible, his car doesn't work, he's broke and they can't have kids.  Of course, he calls on God and all of that changes.  In typical, Christian movie fashion they work in Scripture way too much and I felt awkward watching it even though I'm a believer.  There was one really good pep talk/sermon that the coach gave and a few funny lines interspersed, but ultimately the film was very disappointing and formulaic.  Even the one pseudo-chill scene was ruined by our hero screaming "Don't give up! Don't give up!" for about 2 minutes straight.

Now, there were some interesting observations that I made during my 100 minutes of agony.  The first thing that struck me was that while Shiloh Academy was deep in the heart of Georgia, there wasn't a single black player on the football team.  Not one.  However, every shot of the opposition contained at least one black player.  In fact, the only black character that had any lines was the Offensive Coordinator for Shiloh Academy who also doubled as the only funny character in the entire film.  I can accept that Hickory High fielded an all-white team, but a 21 st Century southern football team?  That I find exceedingly hard to believe.

The believability of any sports related movie usually comes down to whether or not I can honestly believe that the players and coaches would rationally act in the way they are depicted during game situations.  This film was no different.  There was a number of doozies, especially in regards to clock management, that completely lost this film for me.  The decisions that the opposing coaches made would make Art Shell seem like a Mensa candidate.  I don't want to provide any spoilers, but if you're going to make a sports movie the sports scenes should at least be believable.

Finally, the greatest irony of all I found in the fact that the AFA is so supportive of this film while the only product placement which I could find was for Ford which the AFA has been boycotting for over a year.  The excitement about driving two nice cars, both of which are Fords, by main characters can not be denied.  And yet, the AFA proudly supports this film and thus indirectly is supporting the same company that they are adamantly boycotting.  That revelation was absolutely the best part of the movie.

So, for the faithful of City Business Church looking for quality entertainment while waiting for a new post by Catalyst or the Reformed Pope I would suggest looking somewhere other than Facing the Giants.  And while the creators of this film reinforce "What is impossible to God?  Nothing!" ad nauseam by the closing credits, I would add one caveat. 

What is impossible to God?  Nothing, except a quality, Christian movie!

Do you believe this is the End Times?

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David Mackin asks a timely question:

The End Times

  
Do you believe that you’re living in the last generation of history? Do you agree with John Hagee, Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Mike Bickle, Irwin Baxter, Kevin Conner, and many others hat the end of the world is at hand?

A couple of months ago, I visited the International House of Prayer (IHOP) bookstore in Kansas City and saw all sorts of books and tapes about this being the last generation. IHOP hosts an annual conference that attracts 10,000 people (mostly young adults) to a large auditorium in Kansas City. They are taught about the End Times, fasting, prayer, worship, intercession, and other truths of the movement.  Among many other books on the End Times, Mike Bickle stocked Kevin Conner’s commentary on the Book of Revelation. It contained the same Redemption Week Theory chart (i.e., 6,000 years of human history followed by a 7,000 year millennium) that he taught at PBC in the early 1970’s.

I remember talking to Ernest Gentile, a prophet from San Jose in his motel room about the chart many years ago in Portland. Ernest told me that he had learned the chart as a young Christian from Rev. Offler’s  Bethel Bible School in Seattle. He told me that the way that I was pointing out the errors of the chart reminded him of the way that he and others questioned some of the pastors in their movement, e.g., Rev. Violet Kitely (Oakland), on how they could interpret the Bible in certain ways. Unfortunately, I don’t think I changed his mind.

Anyway, I wonder how much more mileage these End Time teachers and prophets will continue putting into a chart that has already been proven false?!? The chart predicted the end of the world in 2000 A.D. The last time I looked, it was 2007 A.D. and counting!