Just decided Kanye, Taylor, & Beyoncé will make a guest appearance in my sermon this weekend.
That’s interesting. My Pastor preached about 3 famous people this weekend, too. Mordecai, Esther, and Haman.
Steven Furtick describes a baptism at his church today as pandemonium.
For a man who makes his living with words, this is terribly clumsy.
The word has multiple meanings, none of which flatter Furtick or his church. From dictionary.com:
Why can’t these Turnstile leaders use words from God’s Word when they describe the church?
(The obvious answer is that they’d have to deal with terms like sober, decency and order, though perhaps you have some other theories.)
Almost two weeks ago, I asked Perry Noble supporters to give us examples of Noble’s biblical wisdom. I asked someone to describe the emperor’s advertised grand clothes, not seeing any myself, and all of his supporters on this site (and there are many) decided he was best left in his jeans and tee shirt.
Perhaps Noble was a little peeved at being abandoned on these pages, but if you review his tweets from last weekend, it appears that he provided his own response, which was, to paraphrase, It’s best that I don’t preach as well as some others.
How else do you explain this tweet?
The worse thing God could give some of us is more information b/c it would not draw us 2 Him but cause us to run from Him in disobedience!
It must be nice to think you can give advice to God, though perhaps he’s just emulating his pal Steven Furtick, who thinks God spent too much time talking about Moses and wasted all his time on Leviticus. Or Andy Stanley who says we should excise the word shepherd from Jesus’ teaching. As he says, “That word needs to go away.”
Andy Stanley also says that concealing or dumbing down information is a useful leadership technique:
Here’s an incredibly important principle. You cannot communicate complicated information to large groups of people. As you increase the number of people, you have to decrease the complexity of the information.
We talked about church marketing earlier in the week, and here we see how a sales mentality can corrupt faithful preaching. Note two lessons that Tony Morgan says are a characteristic of proper church marketing:
We focus less on what we say and more on how we act.
We reduce the number of competing messages we are trying to communicate.
The spoken word is deprecated and replaced by action, guided by a local pastor who thinks there’s benefit in intentionally hiding the whole counsel of God from his congregation. As Noble reminds us, an emphasis on continual action also suggests that we can stop learning.
Many times with me it isn’t always learning something new…but rather being reminded of what I should already know!
Stay shallow, friends. Stay shallow.
(An alternate interpretation of Noble’s first tweet would be that God only gives new revelation to people who are willing and able to properly respond to it, which often includes Noble himself. Such an interpretation suggests that the Bible is insufficient, and sets up pastors as special receptors of extra-biblical wisdom. It also limits God in whom he’s allowed to speak to.)
Last Sunday, Elevation passed out the flyer you see on the right, listing 12 Faith confessions to be stated aloud daily by each member. I thought I’d post them here for examination:
When did Furtick turn into a self-esteem coach? Notice the first word of each of these sentences. I agree that these sentences confess faith, but the faith seems to be more aimed at affirming the individual rather than professing the Truth about God.
For the most part, these are all “safe” in regards to scriptural accuracy, but have clearly bent the ideas towards empowering humans. It’s no wonder Elevation draws enormous crowds, when this is their statement of faith.
Now, let’s address a few of these specifically:
I am fully forgiven and free from all shame and condemnation.
True. Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ. However, when one considers the make-up of Furtick’s normal audience, I wouldn’t be so sure that all of them can confidently make this statement.
I am able to fulfill the calling God has placed on my life.
Maybe this is why Steven doesn’t like learning about Moses.
I am fully funded to do everything God has called me to do.
Good. This should eliminate any need for fund-raisers at Elevation…Woops. Didn’t see this.
I have no insecurity, because I see myself the way God sees me.
Paul considered himself the King of Sinners, yet was pretty successful in ministry. I’d stop wasting time trying to elevate my own self-view, and start trying to see God for who He is.
I am completely whole physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Is this Word of Faith teaching? Considering T. D. Jakes is one of Steven’s heroes, it’s not all that surprising.
I am protected from all harm and evil in Jesus’ name.
Might want to check out what happened to the Apostles. Or Jesus himself for that matter.
Who said 90 days wasn’t enough for a thorough reading of the Bible?
Attn #B90x ers worldwide: you have full permission to skim & scan on days like today. Unless you’re looking for a unique baby name.
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?
In the last few days, we’ve been wondering why leaders like Warren, Noble and Furtick have such a dim view of Bible study. In the case of Furtick, at least, I think I’ve found an answer.
He doesn’t like the Bible.
For a bit of background, Furtick has been leading some in his church in 90-day Bible read through. From his and others’ tweets, they seem to be somewhere around Deuteronomy at the moment. Furtick’s tweeted observations from his own reading are both revealing and horrifying. Let’s start with the worst:
Holly just told me the entertaining Bible stories are God’s way of apologizing for Leviticus.
Getting past the idiocy of judging the Bible based on its entertainment value, he thinks that God should apologize for parts of the Bible?
A pastor’s primary responsibility is to faithfully preach God’s Word. If Pastor Furtick thinks he knows best which bits should be in the Bible and which bits shouldn’t, he should go work for Rob Bell. He should not be working for God.
Even some bits that he deems worthy of including in the Bible seem to bore him. Note this:
Is it bad that I’m glad that Moses is dead? Is it b/c I have a man crush on Joshua?
Yes, Pastor Steven, it is bad. It’s even worse that you have to ask in public.
We have noted on this blog how the Bible seems to be a very low priority in Furtick’s sermon planning. This may explain why. Furtick’s personal interests guide how he reads and values the Bible, not God’s.
It’s not that Furtick finds everything boring or a waste of time. Some things really get his juices flowing.
Just had a financial strategic consulting mtg loaded w/ terms like absorption rate & OCF growth. Excruciating? Not at all. LOVE that stuff.
His arrogant attitude towards God’s Word is also apparently rubbing off on his church staff. This came from his Creative Pastor:
Deuteronomy…more like repeateronomy. Forgive me God.
It’s appalling, but at least he had the sense to apologize to God, not demand an apology from him like his boss did.
I look forward to seeing how Furtick apologists defend this, but one defense that can’t be used is that we shouldn’t read so much into dumb tweets. Furtick thinks quite highly of his own Twitter content, and imagines that the world is waiting for his 140-character wisdom.
I never imagined how much inspiration I’d be able to spread to people through a simple daily encouraging thought. I try to get these out almost every morning. When people retweet, it multiplies this impact exponentially. That’s very rewarding and humbling to me. Right after I wake up, I get to begin my day by planting a seed of hope into the life of thousands-both at Elevation, and around the world.
What makes this worse is that Furtick is aware that he’s leading spiritual infants with his tweets. As Downing pointed out yesterday, if we are to believe Furtick’s numbers, most of his church are new believers who don’t know how to study or read the Bible.
Why would you want to read Leviticus if your pastor thinks it’s a mistake? Why would you want to study Moses and the law if Joshua’s the main stud? Why bother with Deuteronomy if it’s unnecessarily repetitive? Why worship God when your pastor thinks he’s embarrassed?
How can a minister of God’s Word not only think that the Bible is boring and useless, but communicate that idea to his flock?
If you think that what God said is dull, between you and God, the dullard is not God.
UPDATE: The Leviticus quote has been updated to indicate that he was repeating his wife’s comment. See the discussion for why I think he is fully accountable for the comment himself though.
I made a comment in the When to Stop Eating thread that I think deserves a little more thought. Last weekend, Elevation had their grand opening for their first permanent site. It drew their largest attendance yet. As Furtick reports:
Over 7000 people at Elevation this weekend! Over 500 salvations! Eph. 3:20! Thank you Jesus!
500 salvations is a huge number, and praise be to God for those souls. Even though it seems unbelievable, I know through Christ anything is possible. I wouldn’t question the legitimacy of those conversions, but apparently Steven does:
We’ve seen over 5000 people indicate that they placed their faith in Christ in the last 3 ½ years through our weekend worship experiences. While we can’t make any assertions about which of these conversion experiences were genuine, we’re so thankful that God has allowed us to scatter so much seed and see such an evident harvest in our city. He will separate the wheat from the chaff. We’ll just keep sowing the Gospel and celebrating the life change we can see.
Nevertheless, I’ll assume those 5,000 converts are real for now. Just a quick glance at the figure in the first quote vs. the figure in the second quote stopped me in my tracks.If Elevation’s largest attendance ever was 7,000, and they have had over 5,000 people saved in the last 3 years, that would mean that at least 70% of Furtick’s audience are new believers.
So as Senior Pastor to such a congregation, what is Steven teaching these infants and toddlers in Christ?
I am sure he borrowed the idea from his mentor Perry Noble, who probably borrowed it from Rick Warren. Here’s a quote from Warren on the topic:
“The last thing many believers need is to go to another Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting into practice. What they need are serving experiences in which they can exercise their spiritual muscles.”
Why do these guys have such a disdain for bible study? It has to be one of the following:
The next figure to address is the 500 salvations from last weekend. That is 500 brand new converts, thrown into this world where the pastor doesn’t care about their needs, they are told to feed themselves, and directed away from Bible study. 500 people. That’s an entire church…all with no guidance. The church I serve is in a town with a total population of 600.
You have to question what is being done to care for these 500 brand new believers. Have they hired new staff to look out for these guys? Have they made any changes to ensure this group is cared for? Again, you have enough people to be considered a pretty large church here. That’s scary.
Steven Furtick says that we can study the Bible so much that it can be harmful. For example, he warns people not to go to churches where they learn about things like the doctrines of grace and “stuff your face until you’re so obese spiritually that you can’t even move.”
Eating God’s Word is an interesting metaphor, given that Jeremiah also used it in Jeremiah 15:16, but in a very different way.
When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
O LORD God Almighty.
Perry Noble has also told us that we need to go on a spiritual diet:
Christians DO NOT need another Bible study.
David told us when we were supposed to eat in Psalm 1:2.
His delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Two questions for Furtick and Noble:
Oh no. Steven Furtick appears to have fallen off Noble’s scoreboard wagon (to mix metaphors).
He quotes this approvingly this morning:
God will use the Gospel to lead men to Christ if the devil himself preaches it.
And you all thought he didn’t read Pajama Pages.
Or at least that’s how Steven referred to it when greeting attenders last week. You see, Steven said he was tired of hearing that Elevation was a one-man show, so he decided to have all the volunteers take the week off…
First, let me stop here for a moment. This is disingenuous to begin with. Steven knows that no one is accusing him of showing up early, greeting visitors, setting up equipment, and increasing the potential of breaking a sweat. The “one-man show” critique is aimed at the fact that all the “vision” for the church is birthed in Steven’s head. In fact, he said himself that if you go against his vision, you are fighting God.
Anyway, no volunteers showed up and apparently it was a nightmare. Here is what the executive pastor had to say, via Steven’s Blog:
The worship leader carried a powered speaker out on stage and delivered an acoustic set without a band…. The only sign we had up was “Elevation Church is meeting today”. We intentionally printed crooked black and white programs with the song lyrics and scriptures. Pastor carried a rickety music stand on stage to preach from with no fancy bumper or video playing in the background.
He goes on to call it “the most unimpressive worship experience ever.”
This clearly begs the question, who are you trying to impress?
This is really the crux of my argument with Elevation, Newspring, and the hundreds of other churches like them that join the bandwagon everyday. Elevation is saying they had a terrible week…worst ever…because there weren’t elaborate programs, a band, flashy videos, and a proper podium for Steven to preach from. Every other week, regardless of criticism, they always shout, “look at all the people that were saved!”. Were people saved this week? If so, even if it was just one soul, how is that the worst week ever?
If people weren’t saved…why not? What if there was an energy crisis? Would Elevation still be a viable ministry, or can God only use them when all their gadgets are up and functioning?
The priorities here are so far out of line, it is actually scary. For the record: There is nothing wrong with color bulletins, bands, videos, or podiums. When these things are used as tools of worship, they can be very effective. However, when your worship actually depends on these things, that should be a wake-up call that something is wrong.
Here’s the sad thing about the whole deal: I watched the service. If they were truly trying to deliver an experience far worse than other Elevation services…they failed miserably. It seemed like every other Elevation service to me:
And most of all… A whole lot of…
Steven Furtick
The one man show.
Here we see Furtick once again slamming other Pastors…something he tells the rest of us not to do:
I am saying that the way we train pastors in our country prepares them to be more like Mister Rogers than Joshua. Or Jesus.
And most pastors who are formally trained graduate with a Ph.D in pomp and prissiness, with no clue how to engage the enemy, draw first blood, and strategically occupy a city with the rule of the Kingdom of God.
Because of the perception of Pastoral ministry we’ve perpetuated, the sharpest and highest potential young leaders in our country go on to do other things with their lives.
After all, who wants to give the best years of their lives to keeping a committee of angry white deacons happy about the carpet color and the type of flowers in the vestibule?
Furtick kinda addresses some of his issues this morning on his blog…read the entire post here.
While he does take a moment to congratulate himself, he ends well:
I have said, and will say, some dumb things. I’ve said some inaccurate things. Sometimes, I’ve said accurate things in dumb ways. If it every sounds like I’m schizophrenic because I say one thing in August and another thing in November, it’s because I’m learning. I’m progressing. I know it’s uncomfortable to watch me change clothes right in front of you. But at least I’m fresh.Be patient with me. I’m not preaching, teaching, blogging and tweeting because I think I’ve got it figured out. But I figure our church owes it to you to figure it out in front of you. To learn out loud.
We’re bound to hit some bad notes. But at least we’ll have ‘em recorded for playback. Should make some fun blooper reels.
I appreciate what he says here, but I do wish he displayed that humility a little more often. He has to understand, that people DO think he has it all figured out. Therefore, what he says and how he carries himself in the public eye is quite important. So far, he has done a good job of making himself out to be the young, brash, anti-authority, flamboyant pastor that feels he is above questioning from the common public. If he actually believes what he wrote above, he must make a change in the way he and his church are presented.
I’m not holding my breath…but it would be a nice start.
Here we see Furtick throwing another attack towards the Church:
Some churches are like mushroom farms: the people are kept in the dark and fed manure.
Here again we see that Furtick’s rules for bashing churches only applies to Elevation and his personal friends. He can say preachers are feeding their people manure all he likes, but remember, if we don’t personally know someone, we can only pray for them…or just shut up all together.
In this video we see Steven Furtick rage against churches with an angry little rewrite of the campfire favorite, “Kumbaya”. Here are Furtick’s new lyrics:
Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya. Our Church is stuck in the 1950′s and we won’t change anything my Lord, Kumbaya.
An Entire generation is dying and going to Hell with no role model outside of Paris Hilton, my Lord. Kumbaya.
Give me another program, another Bible study, Kumbaya.
A few things I want to point out about Furtick’s rant: