You wrote: “I can share with you that Christ has and is working through New Spring. My husband and both of my children were saved and baptized at New Spring.”

This is great news.

How can you have such a positive viewpoint of NS, if you: “do not agree with how our pastoral staff handled this problem and do not feel like the statement the church put out on this matter is the “whole truth”.”

So, the church lied publicly and the pastoral staff handled this issue incorrectly, and yet you: “We love our church home and enjoy worshiping and growing in our faith there.”

This is like an employee saying that they love Enron and enjoy working there, even though the execs made some poor decisions. Shouldn’t you just leave?

“An important part of Noble’s redefinition–he calls it reformation–effort is tearing down the traditional church. You don’t have to look far on his blog or listen long on a Sunday to see him besmirching the honor, motives or practices of other churches in the community. Pastors are commonly described as prostitutes, and churches as elitist country clubs that give the middle finger to their community. Church goers (not his own, of course) are characterized as religious bigots who don’t know Jesus.”

That probalby is one of the best descriptions of these churches and the movement as a whole that I’ve seen. Sadly, you haven’t studied these people enough because some of us who have could tell you how to fight them “postmodernly” without being hateful like them (and I don’t think you were). You cannot beat them with “traditional” methods. You have to “outpostmodernize” them.

God bless you and your family, and I am so sorry that you all had to go through all this. I still can’t get my chin off the floor.

And I don’t care how much you disagree with someone, the whole business of Maxwell’s behaviour is so far beyond the pale that it ought to have been shut down months before it was. No Christian has any business doing that sort of thing. Ever. In a big church like NewSpring there will always be people who are too attached to the pastor, and mentally unbalanced with it. It is part of the job of the pastoral staff to make sure those people don’t bring the Church into disrepute. This is a two-way street, after all. We are supposed to be above reproach, and while no church can control what others say about them, they can certainly control what they say, and since we know members of the the NS leadership followed the obscene Twitter account, they should have said that it was utterly unacceptable.

I write as a pastor of a small Church, and I can say that no pastor should dismiss all critics as evil. It seems to me that NS has confused thinking people are intellectually wrong with thinking they are morally wrong. This is quite understandable in our postmodern culture, where the category of intelletual error is not properly appreciated, but should have no place in the church.

Of course, it’s also a lot easier than actually making a substantive response to anyone. Which is probably why Gail Riplinger’s sycophants act much like Perry Noble’s.

“Forgive as you’ve been forgiven”
“Bless those who curse you”
“pray for your enemies”
“consider it all joy when you suffer trials”

Forgiveness doesn’t require someone to seek forgiveness. Reconciliation probably does. I’m not really sure what Duncan wants out of NS at this point. I’ve said before they should apologize in some way, and that they should make some financial recompense. He should forgive them either way, but reconciliation would require at lease an acknowledgment by NS that Duncan was wronged. Doesn’t sound like that’s forthcoming.

The bigger issue for me, as someone who is neither a champion of NS nor a friend of Duncan, is that NS has created an unhealthy environment for dissent and open thinking. If PN is teaching God’s word, he shouldn’t fear any of his listeners comparing what he says with God’s word. His emphasis should be on fidelity to the bible, not blind loyalty to him or NS. Reasonable minds can disagree, but as long as we agree on the basic premises, there is plenty of room for dialogue. In my own life, I have learned a great deal from a few people that I vehemently disagree with on certain points. That’s what happens in the marketplace of ideas, and it’s a great thing.

Noble has created an environment where an employee and volunteers thought he would be impressed or amused by coarse, disgusting twitter messages about another professing believer. Maybe PN never saw these messages, but the very fact that Maxwell would direct these messages to Noble is telling about Maxwell’s view of what Noble would approve. Noble’s only statement about what happened was his admission that a NS staffer “crossed over the line” but not in the unabomber way. I’m curious when Noble thinks Maxwell crossed the line? The first gay porn email? The second? The computerized phone calls at night?

I think PN has many admirable qualities. I am very disappointed in his and NS’s handling of this affair. I have followed this blog, with regular comments, for six months or so. Though I have agreed with Duncan often, I have disagreed with him as much. I call them as I see them and I really enjoy a good debate. The idea that he or Noble would think that I hate either one of them because we disagree on an issue is hard for me to fathom. (I’m pretty sure Duncan doesn’t feel that way, and I’m sure I’m not on Nobel’s radar, but I wonder if commenting on a critic’s blog makes me a jackass, too?) You cannot please everyone, as Noble surely knows. But it’s foolhardy to assume that anyone who disagrees is simply a “hater.”

You don’t have to be rich to prioritize ministry to children and put things in the budget that will draw them in. Big misconception there. Lots of stereotyping going on here.”

I would ask, what is the need to have those things to “draw them in”… when did the Bible stop being enough to draw in God’s people to the temple? Answer: The Bible is STILL solely sufficient to draw them in… In adding the worldly elements of entertainment such as Wii and PS3 and similar items are not attempts to draw in God’s elect but to draw in the goats in hopes that they become sheep.

But what you attract them with is what you have to keep them with. Years ago youth ministers started bringing Nintendos and such into their youth rooms and now those youth are adults who have to go to “big church” on Sunday morning and they need that same hype level. They were never taught to treasure the Word of God in their hearts and so they need a band to play AC/DC music or for the “pastor” to appear cool and relevant.

Imagine if any church that had those type of entertainment draws tossed them out in favor or more Bible study or coming up with even more exciting ways to study the Word and praise God!

The misconception behind these “outreach” efforts is that church is for the unsaved. That’s incorrect. Check the book of Acts for starters… Church is for God’s people to gather together and worship God and be taught from the Word so that we can hit the streets and fulfill the Great Commission in our towns, jobs, schools, etc…

Now do we want, in our churches, to be welcoming to the “seeker” who comes in as a guest or off the street… absolutely… we want to welcome them and show them Christ with our actions as well as our words. But the day that churches began tailoring themselves to the unregenerate was a sad day in church history in deed.