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.
In this video from IMPART, Steven Furtick is joined on stage by special guest Perry Noble. The first thing that hit me after watching this video is that someone paid $700 to watch these guys sit around and talk. Apparently, being able to draw a large crowd to a church service makes you an expert on all things. For instance, from the video, here’s Noble on marriage:
The problem with some pastors marriages is you want your wife to understand you and she don’t. She loves you. She married you. She will never understand you.
Maybe this is true in some cases, but Perry doesn’t strike me as a particularly complex guy. I mean, here’s what he says just a couple seconds later:
We’re men. If it doesn’t have anything to do with sex we forget it.
Luckily for us, Perry doesn’t stop there. He continues to impart his valued wisdom. On women:
Two guys can get in a fight and five minutes later we can go to lunch and be best friends again. Two women get in a fight, they’re not even gonna talk in Heaven.
Man. I wish I had known that women were incapable of forgiveness and grace before I got married. Oddly though, In the past twelve years, I’ve found my wife to be the most forgiving person I’ve ever met. I guess if Pastor P is right, she’ll show her true womanly vengeful side soon enough.
Now, that wisdom alone would have been worth at least $700 to me, but believe or not, Perry shares more. On parenting:
(To an older pastor) How did you raise a little girl that doesn’t hate church? He said this, I wrote this down. He said, “I never talked negatively about the church in front of my little girl.”
That’s good. I do wonder if the opposite is true. Should Perry talk negative about his little girl in front of the Church? I mean, it does seem that every time she has a bathroom accident, he tweets it.
Now, I know that more was discussed at Impart, and I hope that there are subjects where Steven and Perry are more adept, but with Unleash coming up soon, Impart just finished, and who know what else after that, I just don’t understand the draw. What do you think these guys will say that is worth paying to hear? I think it all comes down to the large crowds and hoping some of that success will rub off. The critics are always accused of jealousy, but I think you have to be pretty envious of someone to pay $700 just to hear their secrets.
It’s kind of like dieting, I suppose. We all know how to lose weight: Eat less, exercise more. Yet millions of books and videos are sold each year that in some form or another tell people just that. We keep buying these products hoping that there will be some magic combination that will allow us to wake up and be the person we want to be… with little or no effort. My guess is that is the motivation for a large group of people that keep going to these conferences. Ok, I’ve read my Bible. I know what the Church is, and what it should be…but maybe, if I go to this one more conference, I’ll hear the secret that will bring me 10,000 members overnight.
Let me save you some money: It’s not gonna happen. Even if you follow Furtick’s advice point by point and do everything exactly the way he did it, your odds of getting similar results are almost non-existent. I think even he would tell you that, though if you really believed it, he would lose money.
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.
I like what Furtick has to say on his blog today. I have often questioned the motives of mega-church pastors, and it’s good to know that Steven is beginning to question his motives as well. Here’s a little snippet:
And my friend felt like the Lord responded to him with a challenging thought:
“What if I do everything you’re asking me to do in your city, but I do it through someone else’s ministry? Would you still pray as passionately? Would you be okay with that?”
That’s a good thought for any of us involved in ministry. Steven admits that he is not to that point yet, and that he’s not even sure he’s ready to work on it, which is a good start:
I’m not sure I’m entirely ready to wrestle with my own motivations at that level. This is pretty advanced stuff. But ultimately, I’d like to get to a place where my heart rejoices with the same intensity because another church in town baptized 100 people as it does when Elevation baptizes 100 people.
I’m not there yet.
Maybe it’s time for some of these guys to really examine where their audience is coming from, and why they are showing up. I know the programmed response is that it doesn’t matter as long as they are hearing the Gospel, but if Furtick is concerned about the Universal Body of Christ, like this post implies, then it does matter.
Maybe instead of throwing up another video campus, or promoting your online service so much, you could partner (rather than compete) with an established church in that area. Maybe there will come a time when Elevation will be struggling like some of the older churches are now. Will a newer, shinier church swoop in to pick from their remains, or will the new church lend a hand to an older brother in need?
Here’s hoping that Furtick continues digging into this thought…and acts accordingly.
Don’t ever compromise God’s vision. For anyone. Or anything. At any time. Stay true to His purpose. At any cost.
I would be very interested to know what Steven means by “God’s vision” in this context. If we go on what he has said in the past, we can assume that he is talking about some extra-biblical revelation…almost certainly, extra-biblical revelation that furthers Furtick’s personal agenda. Steven has been known to get imagination and divine revelation confused in the past.
I find it unsettling that a guy who has been more than willing to compromise God’s Word, is completely unwilling to compromise his own imaginary vision.
Is there anything good that can possibly come from this mindset?
God got very angry with David for taking a census in 2 Samuel 24. In fact, this single act of disobedience resulted in a plague that destroyed 70,000 people. The level of punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime. All David was doing was taking inventory of his kingdom. But God is about to send a reminder: it wasn’t his kingdom. These people belonged to God, and David had no business claiming the increase of Israel as his own.
That’s not a bad lesson to learn. Everything belongs to God. True, but for the sake of clarity, I don’t think that was the exact problem in this passage of scripture. Here are a couple of excerpts:
2 Samuel 24: 2-4, 9 -
2So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.”
3But Joab replied to the king, “May the LORD your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”
4The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel…
…9Joab reported the number of the fighting men to the king: In Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand.
Furtick sees this as an ego issue for King David. God got mad because David was proud of how large the Kingdom had grown. Again, this would be a wonderful lesson for Steven to learn, but I think the actual problem for David was not ego, but lack of faith. Rather than relying on God’s protection for Israel, he was putting his trust in the number of troops available.
However, if Steven interpreted it that way, it wouldn’t be much use to him in justifying his ministry practices.
The post continues:
As leaders, we’ll always be tempted toward an unhealthy preoccupation with quantifying our own success.
Nope, he actually makes an attempt to justify it two paragraphs later:
Here’s the distinction: it’s good to be concerned with numbers. But we’ve got to be concerned about the right numbers…for the right reasons. We’ve got to make sure we’re measuring ministry numbers to measure our effectiveness and enlarge the Kingdom of God…not simply to placate our ego.
This is where the real problem rears its head. You absolutely cannot measure your effectiveness in the Kingdom of God by counting the number of people who attend your event.
The Muslims and Mormons are increasing their numbers daily. Are they being effective for the Kingdom of God?
As long as ministers measure success by worldly standards, they will have to continually compromise God’s Word to achieve their desired results.
In this post, Steven Furtick shows us how he gets people to do exactly what he wants:
Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance.”
-Deuteronomy 31:7
As a leader, remember: you’re not the only one God has made promises to. The people you lead have dreams. They dream of impact. They dream of influence. They dream of maximized creativity and realized potential.
The first thing we need to notice is that Furtick immediately equates God’s promises to our dreams. The dreams listed sound much more like a lust for power and a selfish desire for personal fulfillment than anything God has promised in His Word.
Lead them into their land. Develop them to be their best. Help them to establish ownership of their acreage. When you focus on calling out the potential of those you lead, you’ll usually find that your standard will become their standard. And your vision will come to pass as a byproduct.
Let’s summarize this handy manipulation tactic:
Find justification in Scripture for your tactic. Any reference will do, really. If you can’t find an entire verse to support your position, just use a word or two from a verse.
Take note of human nature. People want power. People want influence. People want acceptance. Play on those desires.
Make the people believe that what you want is really what they want. Then, they will work hard to get you what you want.
Your best innovation flows from revelation. You must prioritize the presence of God in your life.
More can be accomplished in a nanosecond of prayer, worship, and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit than a month’s worth of strategy meetings in the flesh.
Many leaders have created virtually no margin to make room for the kind of divine encounters that birth true vision and revolutionary concept. I can trace the genesis of many of the most important ideas in the history of our church to a specific moment in the presence of God. I can trace my most frustrating seasons to a deficiency of time allocated to my most important task: seeking the wisdom of the Lord.
What would Moses have missed had he never turned aside to see the burning bush?
If the leaders in the church in the book of Acts had neglected prayer and the Word to serve tables, how might the influence of the Gospel been impeded worldwide?
What revelation, inspiration, imagination and innovation is left undiscovered in your life because you’re failing to prioritize the presence of God?
Is Steven talking about extra-Biblical revelation again? Is this really what “leadership” is about in the modern church? Mighty man of God climbs his own metaphorical Mt. Sinai to await divine inspiration. Those of us who are commoners just have to sit dumbly and wait for our leader to speak…
Really?
1 Peter 2:9 ( and the entire New Testament honestly ) seem to infer that we all have a direct connection to God through His Son Jesus. His Word has been given to us all, and is sufficient revelation for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. What did God leave out?
Furtick gets imagination confused with revelation. In his final paragraph, he seems to equate the two.
Products of my imagination will carry more weight if I claim them to be divinely inspired. Just ask Joseph Smith.
I can’t imagine that he thinks very much of it, based on earlier tweets suggesting God should apologize for Leviticus. Now he’s suggesting that the prophets were depressed and emotionally unstable.
Finishing Ezekiel-wondering how the OT might have been different if the prophets had access to Lexapro
Yeah, yeah, the emoticon at the end says he’s just joking, but why? How do you, if you are a Christian pastor, mock the intentions and intelligence of the Holy Spirit? There’s nothing funny here.
Does he think the prophets were too over the top? Was God just exaggerating his warnings when he used the prophets? If they took Lexapro, would Furtick have less to read because Ezekiel just wouldn’t be there? Is that it?
Furtick is supposed to be leading his church in a rapid Bible read through. It would be helpful if he could stop denigrating the Bible as he does so.
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.
On Sunday, my wife and I were talking about Little House on The Prairie. We were discussing the church on that show, and how everyone in the town went to the same church, and the Pastor was active in the life of each family. Families who were at odds with one another sang hyms in peace on Sunday morning. Everyone from merchants to servants sat in the same pews as the Reverend delivered his message. As we reminisced about the TV show from our childhood, my wife asked a question that really made me think.
What if someone in Walnut Grove didn’t like the church?
I guess they would have gone anyway. With no other options for worship in town, no means of travel to get very far from home, and no internet campuses, the devout believer would have most likely continued in fellowship regardless of personal taste. Now, fast forward 150 years. My hometown, with a population of around 16,000, has 219 mainstream Protestant churches. That doesn’t include the charismatic off-shoots, non-denominationals, Catholics, and other groups that seem to pop up daily around here. Count in the thousands that are claimed to be going the virtual worship route, and you can see that this pie is being sliced thinner and thinner.
I will give Rick Warren the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he was meaning well when he started Saddleback Church in 1980, and though he didn’t create the seeker-friendly concept, most of the major trends in evangelical churches can now be traced back to him. His influence on the modern church can’t be overstated. It could be said that Warren begat Ed young, who begat Perry Noble, who begat Steven Furtick.
With each successive generation we move farther away from Biblical Christianity, and more towards a pragmatic business model. The chain of thought seems to be:
If it draws people, it works.
If it works, it must be from God.
If it is from God, do it.
Of course, this line of reason is fundamentally flawed from the very first point. Scripture never tells us to do whatever is necessary to draw a crowd. We are told to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). We are told to test all things and keep what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We are told to study to show ourselves approved ( 2 Timothy 2:15). We are told to do many things, but I’m having trouble locating anywhere in Scripture that advocates frivolous activity with the only purpose of drawing a large crowd.
Frivolous, you say? But wait Downing, these are ministers of the Gospel Surely you aren’t calling their actions frivolous. I am. You be the judge:
Of course, those are just the tip of the iceberg. We could come up with one hundred silly things that churches are doing to draw crowds without even thinking hard. And let’s be honest, if you are a new believer, or not a believer at all, are you going to the church with rock-solid theology, or are you going to the church that might just give you a plasma TV? If you start connecting the dots, it makes complete sense that there are more mega-churches in America now than ever before, but there are less Christians now.
When Rick Warren first polled his community to see what they wanted in a church, I can see where he was coming from. It is good to ask what is wanted in a church, but he should have been asking God instead of lost sinners. The result of his questionnaire could only lead to the type of watered down Christianity that is all too common today.
Sometimes, too much choice is a bad thing. If I let my six year old choose what she would eat all the time, she may occasionally put down cotton-candy long enough to eat a Happy Meal. Being that I love her, and know what is best for her, I don’t allow her that choice.
With that in mind, how loving is it for us to offer a dying world a steady diet of spiritual cotton-candy and fast food.
Do we know that there is something that is better for them?
In this post, we find Steven Furtick, once again, tirelessly running through any snippet of scripture possible in order to justify his actions:
(ACTS 2:42) They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Did you catch it? They devoted themselves. Who devoted themselves? The new believers! Nobody devoted them to the teaching. They had to do it for themselves. The apostles taught with authority, clarity, and consistency. But the burden of discipleship rested primarily on the new believers, not the leaders of the church.
Gee, had Pastors for the last several centuries realized this, they could have saved much time trying to make disciples. Just dunk a load of people in an above-ground pool, and let them fend for themselves.
Of course, that becomes problematic when you read Matthew 28:19:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
If Steven is right, this verse must be speaking to non-disciples, and Jesus is telling them to make themselves disciples.
Wait…Jesus was actually speaking to the Apostles?
This is the danger of taking one word out of one verse, and trying to build doctrine around it. The vast majority of the time, you are going to get it wrong.
When I make comments about refusing to let critics upset me, it’s usually b/c a critic has just upset me.
I appreciate Steven’s honesty. I have often wondered why the Turnstile pastors spend so much time talking about, blogging about, tweeting about, how much they don’t care about what their critics say. Perry Noble even took the time to develop a well-reasoned apologetic for his critics: SCOREBOARD. If you follow these guys on any given week, you will notice that it is extremely rare for them to make it a few days without addressing critics in some way. Why do these guys think they are above criticism? Perhaps the idea comes from Purpose Driven mentor Rick Warren, who made this statement in his book The Purpose Driven Church:
Do not criticize what God is blessing.
This is one of those weird statements that seems OK upon first glance, but might require a little more digging. What is Warren really saying here?
How do we know what God is blessing? Is it because of a large congregation? Financially prosperous? Large number of converts?
What about the false prophets Jesus warned against in Matthew 7:15 ? Wouldn’t it be possible that these false prophets looked like they were being blessed by God?
1 Thessalonians 5:21 tells us to test everything. That would seem to imply that we should even test things that which God is blessing. Perhaps, if God is truly behind it, it will hold up to criticism.
I think it is fairly obvious that what Warren really meant was:
Do not criticize what Rick Warren thinks God is blessing.
I have a slightly different concept: Criticize everything. I think this holds up pretty well in light of 1 Thes. 5:21 . God will not be offended if you test His work against scripture. Nor will God’s work ever fail that test. Not all criticism will be helpful. Not all will be scriptural. This is what the passage means by holding on to the good, and discarding the evil.
A question we routinely get here is, “How would you feel if people were criticizing you?”
I welcome it.
You may have noticed that we leave the comments open for you, and as long as you are civil, you are allowed to say what you think. Furthermore, if your criticism is well founded and based in Scripture, I may actually benefit from hearing it. So, I encourage you to criticize all that I say. If what I say does not line up with Scripture, discard it and correct me.
However, if you find that what I say does line up with Scripture, that may require action on your end.
Great night w a great man of God. Thx Pastor Joel 4 your humility & msg of hope. Love & honor!
Now it seems Pastor Furtick has added Joel Osteen to his growing list of spiritual mentors. Maybe, you say, this was just a nice photo op, and Steven doesn’t really know much about Osteen. Nope. Here’s a post defending Osteen from Furtick’s blog. A few selected quotes:
But to all of you mean spirited name callers who have made a career of condemning celebrity preachers: Who the heck do you think you are to criticize a man who is impacting a city like Pastor Joel is impacting Houston?
Since when is “impacting a city” the final litmus test of God’s approval? One could easily argue Truman had a large impact on Nagasaki.
…Osteen preaches to 40,000 people weekly…
You couldn’t get 40,000 people to come hear you preach if you gave away free Escalades at the door.
Once again, we get the SCOREBOARD argument, and a slam at smaller congregations. And regardless of what Osteen may be preaching, it’s all fine because he draws a large crowd.
…If you’re concerned about a lack of cross centered preaching, then preach the cross yourself instead of wasting valuable time opining about how someone else should do it better.
Which goes completely against Jesus and Paul’s many admonishments to be on the lookout for false teachers.
…Don’t hurl insults at someone with a big church simply because you can’t make your church grow, and although you’d never admit it, you’re jealous.
That’s right… most of the time the motive isn’t defense of the Gospel… it’s jealousy and presumption.
And of course, the strawman argument that the only people who may have a problem with Osteen are jealous pastors. We couldn’t possibly be concerned Christians following the biblical call to “test all things”.
…You know, I think it’s absolutely essential that Christians think critically about what is being taught in Christian pulpits. We must preserve sound doctrine. We must guard against erroneous theologies.
This is a hilarious way to end a post that is scolding us for doing just what he says we must do. But, to follow Steven’s advice here and think critically about what’s being taught, here’s a clip of Osteen you should watch. Is this what Steven calls sound doctrine?
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.
