Having fun with the Furtick vision translator

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.

You cannot impart a delusion that you do not own.

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.

All of a sudden, Furtick makes sense.

A priceless pair of proclamations from Perry’s preaching

Perry Noble last week:

My prayer for this series is that singles will view being single NOT as a sickness, but rather as a season that needs to be embraced in order to learn all that God desires to teach them.

Perry Noble this week:

We started to hand two marbles out to every single dude who attended NewSpring today…because that is the only “set” they would have!!! Dude…if you are single…MAN UP and pursue a woman instead of a video game!

The lesson? Singleness isn’t a disease; it’s a deformity.

Furtick gives relationship advice

Steven Furtick released this highlight of his recent Impart conference where he downloads his wisdom to pastors and church staffers.

Pajama Pages is happy to provide a translation for you:

I’ve just made a decision in my life that no one human being will take the seat of the throne of lordship in my life, and not one person (and this doesn’t apply to my wife and my kid, because obviously you know that’s a different category) in my life is going to keep me from going to the places that God wants to take me.

Translation: God only wants to take me to really, really neat places. Job is so Old Testament.

You have no idea the relational cost that has to be paid (some of you do, because you’ve paid it) before your ministry can truly grow. And a lot of you have no idea what it feels like to be loved by everyone, but to be known by no-one.

People might not love you, but they sure do love me.

It’s really weird. People come up to me in the restaurant and they’re, like, “Hey, I see you guys are on date night. How did you like the Clemson game Saturday night? I saw you Tweet about that.” And it’s a little freaky; they really know me. And I don’t know them, and I’m trying to have dinner. And usually people are really polite, but still it’s really kind of freaky when you’re, like, “Man, you really know a lot about me,” and I guess I put it all out there, but it’s kind of weird.

I’m really famous, though sometimes I have to talk to little people whom I don’t know.

And what’s more painful than that…

Now think about Jesus. He’s actually invested in these guys and is about to die for them, and they’re sleeping on him. Now think about the relational pain of investing in someone at that level, and then–you know what he says–the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. And it broke Jesus’ heart.

Jesus should have fired that sorry bunch of losers. I would have.

And the single greatest thing standing between some of you and the level God wants to take you to–the stratosphere he wants to propel you into in your leadership–is your unwillingness to confront one relationship in your life.

I’m already in the stratosphere, so the relationship you need to confront is definitely not with me.

I wish I could take your cellphone right now and start asking you questions.

As you know, I don’t do real good talking to anonymous little people like you, but I’m pretty good with cell phones and Twitter.

Some of you have lazy staff members that you’re keeping in positions that they suck at in the name of loving them. You’re not doing that because you love them; you’re doing that because you love the comfort of the relationship you have with them more than you actually love them.

I still have no idea why Jesus kept Peter around. Evangelist, rock. Huh?

I’m not expecting amens in this session. I’m expecting blank stares.

Especially from you suckers who thought it would be a good idea to bring your senior pastor with you today. Go home and start working on your resumes tonight.

I’m preaching so you’ll delete later, not so you’ll say amen now.

Wow, did I mean to say delete? How did some good advice make it into this sermon? Reset.

I’m preaching so you will be empowered. Look, I’m not talking about being cold and being harsh. If you had any idea how much pain we go through to make sure that if someone ever leaves this ministry we take care of them, and we bless them, and we send them. But the most painful things in my leadership life have not been from critics I didn’t know, but from relationships that outgrew their season and I had to let them go.

I’ve fired so many people I can hardly stand it. Don’t you feel sorry for me?

Here’s what I want to prophetically say to some of you who are mourning over a relationship that God has rejected in your life…

When you have to have to destroy a friend’s career, tell them that God made you do it.

1 Samuel 16:1, God confronts Samuel the prophet who was in mourning over Saul, who wasn’t going to make it as the king. “How long will you mourn over what God has rejected?” How long will you mourn over relationships that God was done with three years ago? How long are you going to keep trying to make it work?

I’m the prophet now, so you shouldn’t read anything into the fact that God solved this problem by having the leader fall on his sword. Absolutely no application there.

Would this be a good time to break for lunch?

The new confessional preaching

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.)

Speaking of Nit-picking

 A ministry simile for resource challenges:

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.

Concerned for Cooper

Rough days lie ahead for our NewSpring friend.

He tweets:

We become what we BEHOLD. Period.

So what has he been beholding lately? From Cooper’s Twitpic:

Oh dear.

Bad advice for Balaam

It’s a good thing Balaam’s donkey didn’t have access to Furtick’s tweeted wisdom.

If you’re STUCK-mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally-remember: the only way OUT is THROUGH. Keep pushing…

Isn’t reverse often the best option?

I have a question for Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki has asked the leaders at Catalyst WC how they describe their church.

Are there two or three words that can define your church?

Does BAMF count as one or four words?

This is why I must stop reading Twitter

And when people say the word “Satan” they are actually saying “Santa,” which means we can play Highway to Hell again for Christmas!

File under “Humility”