Since Steven Furtick has discovered that visions and delusions are difficult to tell apart, let’s revisit some of his earlier teachings, this time substituting delusion for vision.
Sometimes God plants a delusion in your heart so outrageous that you need to keep it to yourself for a while.
Understanding and passing the delusion down from the top may be one of the best things we do.
Maybe the reason a lot of staffs and churches don’t “get the delusion” or “support the delusion” of their leader is because it’s not worth getting or supporting.
Get alone with God often. Get a delusion. A terrifying delusion. An impossible delusion. A ludicrous delusion. A “have you lost your freaking mind ” delusion.
Then clarify the delusion. Quantify the delusion.
Then OWN THE DELUSION.
Sometimes our spiritual delusion gets scrambled because we try to hack someone else’s delusion.
If you want a clear delusion, you’ve got to get your own satellite dish.
Delusion. Everyone has to know it, say it, eat it, breathe it, sleep it, live it day in and day out. Everything is done because of delusion. (From an Elevation pastor)
If [a leader is] boldly speaking delusions, I guarantee you he pays a price for it.
A few years ago, “confessional preaching” would have had people assuming you were talking about pastors who promoted and adhered to the great confessions and creeds of the faith.
Nowadays, you’re just as likely to find preachers who confess to their embarrassing physical ailments or sinful urges.
A helpful reader sent me this article about one church that found such preaching a little bit too much:
Brentwood Community Church’s congregation has asked its pastor to stop using the pulpit as his public confessional and to set boundaries on what he’s willing to share.
“Every week he confesses another personal weakness,” says one member. “You get twitchy wondering what’s next.”
The personal confession streak started after Pastor Greg Ott attended a pastors conference in Chicago. He returned and told the church he was embracing a “new vulnerability” with them. ”That sounded great until we realized it meant he would dump his dirty laundry on us every Sunday,” says one church member…
On a recent Sunday morning the congregation seemed to collectively cringe as he stepped around the pulpit and said, “Let me be real transparent with you …”
…One week Ott admitted … he “struggled with angry outbursts,” and occasionally “barked” at fast food drive-thru employees.
It sounds quite familiar, but it’s just satire.
(You can tell it’s not real because he was asked to stop.)
For those of you attending Catalyst in Atlanta this week, if you come back home motivated to do great feats of evangelism, does that make you a catalytic converter?
I was horrible at math in middle school. But I was pretty good at similes. Remember those?
Yellow is to sun as ____ is to moon
Guns n Roses is to best band ever as Tiger Woods is to ____
God is to Satan as dogs are to ____ (the answer, clearly, is cats)
Here’s a ministry simile for all of you who are currently facing a resource challenge.
Resources are to the vision of a ministry what wake is to a boat in the water.
Furtick may or may not have been good at similes, but he was clearly no good at all at analogies.
Ok, now that the nit has been picked, let’s get on to the beef of this post, which is pretty much “name it claim it” Word Faith bunk:
Wake follows the movement of a vessel in direct proportion to the velocity. And it always trails behind the motor.
Resource follows the movement of a vision in direct proportion to the velocity of the vision. And it always follows behind the vision. Behind the risk. Behind the initiative.
Don’t wait for the wake to magically appear. Produce it by moving forward.
Stop waiting for resources to fall out of the sky. Go forward as hard as you can as fast as you can with all that you’ve got.
Soon you’ll be skiing on the wake.
So, all you got a do is step out in Faith and follow your vision, and God will provide the material resources that you need. As always, a little scripture to back that up would be nice, but I suppose it is not necessary when spoken from the mouth of a visionary.
Of course, the fact that this didn’t work for the Apostles in the New Testament, or Jesus himself, should probably make us stop and think.
After refuting the devil’s lie just a couple of weeks ago that NewSpring is just out for your money, I don’t know if this tweet is self parody or just his latest iwanna urge:
I think I want a jeep…or either a really fast sports car…can’t decide!
Paper or plastic. Fries or rings. Credit or debit. Jeep or sports car. Oh, the torturous choices some of us face.
That message on giving must have gone really, really well.
#1 – Everyone Will Not Understand You…SO Stop Trying To Explain Yourself. Cast Vision…And MOVE Forward!
#2 – Everyone Will Not Like You…So STOP Trying To Be Popular.
#3 – You Don’t Have To Be The Person Who Actually Solves Every Problem….Admit You Are Not The Smartest Person and Let Your Experts Be Your Experts.
#4 – Spend WAY More Time Talking About Who You Are Rather Than Who You Are Not.
#5 – A Leader Is Always An East Target Because They Are…A Leader. So, Get Over Yourself And Get On With What God Called You To Do!
PP suggests one more.
#16 – Don’t capitalize every word when you make Important Points.
You may have noticed that Tommy abruptly gave up his Twitter treatment this week.
He’s not the only one. According to this article, cool cyberkids are giving up social networking because there are too many grownups using the sites. Then there’s the Marines, who have banned Twittering for at least the next 12 months, effective immediately.
Who knew that Tommy was a too-cool-for-you Marine?
UPDATE: Tommy can live without Twitter, but apparently Twitter can’t live without Tommy. Tommy says goodbye, and Twitter falls apart.
This blog is mine alone and does not necessarily–or very often–represent the thinking or sentiments of anyone who disagrees with me, my wife, my employer, my friends, my family, my pastor, my brother, my church and, almost certainly, God. After I hit the Publish button, it doesn’t always even reflect my own thinking. It does seem to often reflect the thinking of Tommy F, Twit Conway and some guy in Minnesota, however.
