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.
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.
Talk to any engaged 20-something Christian these days, and you’ll likely find that they can rattle off a list of their favorite podcast preachers. For some, a quick scan of their iPod will probably tell you more about their doctrinal commitments than their local church membership. The relatively recent phenomenon of being able to carry your favorite preacher with you as you’re on the go changes the way we listen to the preached Word of God.
The sermon you hear on your iPod is significantly inferior to the preaching you hear at your local church on Sunday morning. Here’s why:
The preacher doesn’t know you. Although preaching is not the only aspect of shepherding, ideally preaching and shepherding should go together. A preacher feeds his flock the Word of God, though always presenting it in a way that’s meaningful for that particular congregation. To your pastor, you’re a known family member sitting around the (metaphorical) table; to your podcast preacher, you’re a hit, an anonymous number.
You can choose your sermons. Podcasts are perfect for people with itching ears (that’s all of us). Each sermon is labeled and invites us to download or delete it. When I go to my local church on Sunday, I usually don’t know the details of the pastor’s sermon. He commits to preach the Word of God as it’s written, and I commit to listen, test and obey the preached Word as I hear it. Dodging difficult messages is harder when you don’t see them coming.
You can listen while distracted. When you listen to a preacher while driving down the interstate eating your lunch, you’re probably not going to be able to concentrate quite as well as if you were sitting in church. The very value of podcasting is that we can take our preachers with us, so the assumption is that we’ll be multitasking when we listen. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with multitasking, but it’s not worship.
You can listen without your Bible. Although this is possible to do in church, the on-the-go multitasking quality of podcast audiences makes this much more likely. Having a Bible on hand as we listen lets us see as well as hear the Word; it also lets us quickly check the context of a verse and engage in on-the-fly testing of the preacher’s message.
You’re alone. In church I am both encouraged and challenged by the fact that I see my Christian family worshipping with me. Fellowship with God is accompanied by fellowship with his family. Although podcasting and Internet participation carry with them the idea of a virtual community, it’s still only virtual. I know there may be thousands of other believers sharing the podcast with me, but I don’t know who they are. Neither will they know me.
He’s always preaching to someone else. When we listen to a podcast preacher, it’s almost always someone else’s preacher. When the preacher challenges his congregation, it’s always someone else who’s being challenged, not me. Not only am I anonymous and unaccountable, the preacher isn’t even expecting me to be accountable.
It’s usually out of context. Sermons are an integral part of church worship, which usually includes other elements like singing, prayer, confession, communion and giving. To take the sermon out of that context deprives it of the participation and preparation that is a valuable part of the in-church sermon.
I’m not saying that we need to delete all of our podcast subscriptions. There are obviously exceptions to all the points I’ve just made.
Clearly, there is value in hearing the Word of God preached well by anyone, but our primary source of spiritual sustenance, beyond our own Bible study and prayer, should come through membership in a local church with a preacher that faithfully preaches God’s Word.
Perry Noble is going through a series of posts where he describes how he prepares his sermons–in case you ever wanted to preach like Perry.
It took a while for Scripture to enter the conversation, but it made a cameo appearance yesterday as a subpoint under his main point about being creative.
After acknowledging that “correct theology must drive our methodology,” he describes a methodology that is about as theologically driven as my dog’s breakfast.
I bring others into a meeting to discuss the scripture passage because there are people at different stages of life that will see scripture through a different lens.
You would be amazed at some of the conversations that take place in some of our meetings for example I will bring in women who point out, “You know what Perry, that is the fourth sports illustration you’ve used this week. It’s not really connecting us.” Or…I’ll bring in singles and ask how they believe this passage applies to where they are in life.
In fact…I will bring in people that may be different on some minor theological issues that I would happen to think of because I want to take an all-around view of scripture.
This, perhaps, explains why he couldn’t decide whether he was pre- or post-millennial for his end-times series.
The Bible is to be read through the lens of Scripture, not that of whoever happens to be in the room with the pastor that morning. If different people see different things in the Bible, who is to decide which one is true, or which one is God’s word for the church that week? It’s a methodology that will produce unfaithful, weak, man-centered and inconsistent preaching.
The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. (WC I.IX)
I had actually been looking forward to Perry Noble’s current series on the end times, happy that he was tackling a topic that demands some serious study and thinking. The series was prompted by a survey of NewSpring members months ago where Noble asked what topics they would like him to preach on. Noble reported that the end times was the number-one request.
I was impressed that Noble had stepped up the plate. After last weekend, it looks like he’s been given the take sign from the coach.
I did NOT get into pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, pre-millennial, post-millennial…or ANYTHING else along those lines because…I do not CARE!
God taught me the 5 Purposes of Church at 24, but few paid attention. Now,in my50s,I ask”What 24yrold should I be listening to?
Had God been hiding these purposes until 30 years ago? You mean to tell me the Church wandered around for 1,970 or so years without knowing its purpose, until 24 year old Rick Warren comes along and recieves some type of special knowledge from God?
Is Warren really hoping to find another man in his 20s who has received new divine revelation?
Which 24 year old should you listen to? Pretty much anyone who is clinging tightly to the Word of God. Of course, that wouldn’t be new revelation, but really, really old revelation…but at least it is real revelation.
Age shouldn’t disqualify someone from being heard, nor should it be the reason we listen to them. I am sure there are some 24 year olds out there carrying the true message of God…and I would love to hear them. I know for a fact that there are some men in their 60s who are faithfully delivering God’s word.
Why is the messenger all that important anyway? The message itself is what matters.
Last weekend Noble and Furtick announced the astounding news that between them they’d baptized more than a thousand people. I was curious to see how they did it, especially given that, for NewSpring at least, none of the baptism candidates knew about the baptism until a few minutes before they entered the water.
How did Noble do that? What powerful message on baptism did he preach to persuade so many believers to take that sacred step?
The answer: he didn’t say much at all.
His sermon was focused mainly on Joshua taking off his shoes when, according to Noble, he met Jesus in Joshua 3. Jesus asked Joshua to obey the small, insignificant step of taking off his sandals. As a consequence of his obedience in such a minor matter, God put Joshua on the map.
Noble then asked what minor steps we needed to obey God in, and suggested that it might be baptism. He then explained baptism to his congregation. You can see the entire sermon here, but it was full of nonsensical examples that had the church voting for Chevy or Ford, and cheesecake or cheeseburger. You’ll have to watch it yourself to see how it related to baptism, but somewhere in there he did teach about the Why, How, Who and When of baptism.
With such an ambitious agenda, you might think this would take a few weeks to cover, though Noble got through it all in less than four minutes. The following clip is an edited version of the substance of his teaching. (I have edited out extraneous material on marital authority, fear of water, and infant baptism.)
Please understand that I am not criticizing anyone who was baptized last week, nor the church’s mission to baptize believers. What is disappointing is that the pastor thought it was worth a thousand people immediately taking an important spiritual step, yet he didn’t think it worth more than a few minutes of substantial teaching on a doctrine that literally defines his denomination.
Now, a part of his message is unassailable and praiseworthy–if Jesus tells us to do something, we really have no argument against it. That is true, but there is much more that Scripture offers us on the meaning and mode of baptism than demanding straight obedience. Can we not be obedient and informed? One would assume that knowing more about the sacrament would add to the believers’ blessings.
Commentator Tommy had guessed last week that Noble had achieved his numbers by presenting the sacrament as meaningless.
My interest here is the irony of Baptists celebrating nearly 1000 baptisms, by a group who thinks it’s meaningless.
Tommy appears to have been correct. Where does one find any meaning in Noble’s presentation here? Noble’s message was that this is such a minor step–just like taking off your shoes–, that you’d only refuse to do it if you were afraid or proud.
The only meaning he did provide was that this meant one was “going public” for Jesus.
If that’s all it is, how does getting wet in an above-ground pool behind the church building make one’s faith any more public than attending church in the first place? If going public is what it’s all about, why can’t we just post an announcement on Craig’s list?
Surely there’s more to baptism than this.
(Noble posed four questions: Why, How, Who and When. If I am to complain about his cursory answer, it might be expected that I provide my own, and so I will. Over the next few weeks, PP will answer these questions, probably in four different posts.)
Here’s a great example of what can go wrong when you preach from personal anecdotes rather than from God’s Word.
Perry Noble is preaching about how he ignores his critics, and uses a cute little travel anecdote from a recent missions trip to help us see his point.
It’s hard to ignore some things. It really is.
Back in February when I flew to Kenya–went over there for several days, we were very tired. We get on a plane, we fly from Nairobi to Amsterdam. We get off the plane at Amsterdam. We’ve got a layover. We finally get on the plane. We get there, and we were flying to Detroit, and I just want to sleep. I’m like, craving sleep. I don’t want food (and when I don’t want food, it’s bad). I just wanted to sleep.
So I get on this airplane, and I sitting there, and this really large man gets [on] and sits right next to me, and he’s, like, right over here across the aisle, and he kind of sits down. No problem, you know. And he sits there.
He had been sitting down two minutes, and all of a sudden he started snoring. The plane takes off, and this dude–he wakes up for a few minutes and goes back to sleep–and he is snoring. And it’s not like [a gentle snore], it’s like [very loud]. Like the oxygen mask fell, and stuff like that. I mean, like, the stewardess walked by, and she looked at me and went, “I don’t even know what that is. I’m sorry.”
So I started praying for him. I prayed for God to kill him, because he was…
Don’t judge me!
Some of you prayed that for your husband last night while he snored. “God, take him. I know where he’s going. Take him, now! We have life insurance.”
So, I tried to watch a movie, and I’m trying to watch the movie and [he's snoring loudly]. It’s almost impossible to ignore, but finally, over a period of time, I learned how to ignore the snoring and kind of move on.
That’s what Jesus says we need to learn how to do [in] Matthew 7:6.
Matthew 7:6, by the way, says,
Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
Jesus wants us to develop discernment, not murderous fantasies.
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.
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.”
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.)
If you regularly read the blogs of the likes of Perry Noble, Steven Furtick or Tony Morgan, you’ll find that they’re more likely to cite the works of leading marketers than they are theologians. One of their distinctive as leaders is their intentional integration of marketing techniques with an evangelistic message.
Some examples:
Tony Morgan asks, “If Apple was a church, how would Apple do church?”
Tony Morgan wonders how to apply Starbucks’ proven (until recently) marketing techniques to the church.
Perry Noble dreams of some face time with Starbucks’ CEO.
Brad Cooper thinks we should design our worship to impress atheists.
Steven Furtick reduces his whole church to a marketing department. “There is no marketing department at Elevation Church. We are all the marketing department. We are all marketing. All the time. We are marketing the greatest message in the history of mankind. Everywhere. To everyone.”
Perry Noble, via Ed Young, expresses the church’s mission as a business plan. “The church has a product (the good news), a mission statement (Matthew 28:18-20), a marketing strategy (Acts 1:8) and profit (changed lives!)”
There’s nothing really new here, but this new fashion was predicted more than a decade ago by Alistair Begg, one of the preachers that several commentators recommended on these pages last week. A helpful reader sent me a link to this prescient message from 1998.
Here’s a partial transcript of what Begg said:
People … have assumed that preaching is analogous to a marketing exercise, and what you have in the peaching event, we’re told, is a product, namely the Gospel; consumers, namely the congregation; salesmen, the preacher. And the job of the preacher is to overcome consumer resistance and persuade people to buy his product. And many, many, many younger men have begun to labor in pastoral ministry with that as a model.
It is a recipe for the worst kind of disappointment, eventually. Because what do we discover when we turn to the Bible? We discover that according to Paul there is one overwhelming reason why the analogy is no good. And that is because the preacher doesn’t overcome consumer resistance. The preacher cannot overcome consumer resistance. 2 Corinthians 4 says that the Gospel is veiled to those who do not believe.
When Jesus told the parable of the sower, there was one sower and four soils. If it was told today in marketing terms it would be completely the reverse, wouldn’t it? Namely, you would have one soil and four sowers.
Sower number one goes up and does quite a good job, but not a very good job and nothing happens.
Sower number two, he goes up and he’s a little more skillful in the way he does it, and he has a bit of a better response.
Sower number three goes up, and he’s been doing some church growth reading and some marketing analysis and his thing is really beginning to take off.
But number four, he has got all of the technology and all the marketing strategy down, and he knows how to overcome consumer resistance and, hey, presto, look at his field!
Do we really believe that Christian conversion is the result of human persuasion? Absolutely not. God said let light shine out of darkness. See, much of the trouble with our contemporary preaching is that it is built on the fallacious assumption that anybody can and will respond to the Gospel if it’s only presented to them in a proper fashion….
Preaching will be effective…because it is God’s chosen method by which he opens people’s eyes and brings them to an awareness of his grace. And that is why it will demand from us 110 percent committed devotion.
…Young men are coming and people are telling them that people won’t listen to preaching these days. My answer to that is, no, I’ve heard you preach and I’m not surprised that they don’t listen to it. They haven’t even given it a try under the Spirit of God. If they’d used five percent of the imagination involved in creating this roadshow that they’ve got going in their church to seriously understand the Bible and convey it, they’d be amazed at what God would do by his Spirit….
[People say that] people won’t listen to preaching, so what we’ve got to do is look at advertising, look at the way they package it, look at the world of entertainment, look and see how they do it. But the question when our worship services are over is not, how much did the pagan enjoy that; the question is, how much did he learn from that? Not how electric was the atmosphere, but how clear was the Gospel?
It’s simply not true to say that people won’t listen to preaching. If people are being awakened spiritually to their need of God, they will listen. And if they’re not, then no amount of gospel entertainment or evangelistic gimmickry will make them listen.
So if God’s not going to do it God’s way, it’s not going to be done.
Someone asked us in a comment yesterday why PP doesn’t just oppose every pastor. The answer, obviously, is that there are many, many pastors doing fine work and preaching God’s word faithfully and intelligently. Besides my own pastor, one of my favorite preachers is Sinclair Furguson of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia. While every sermon he preaches is very good, I’ve linked to a couple that I’ve listened to recently that are simply magnificent. (The links are to the podcast section on iTunes, though you can stream them from the church’s website.) If you have a spare 40 minutes, you won’t do much better than to listen to either one of these.
It respects the power of the Word. Furguson doesn’t promise to rock our world, yet he does so simply by preaching simply.
It shows the benefit of going deep. Furguson knows the Bible, and it shows in the observations and insights he passes on to his congregation.
It engages the whole person. I love the way Furguson invites you to think with him about the Scripture, and then he moves beyond logic and touches the soul and the heart as well. Don’t tell anyone, but the conclusions of these sermons made me a little teary eyed.
It shows the benefit of sane thinking. A good pastor need not be out of his mind. Furguson uses careful thinking and logic to reveal profound insights that are not obvious at first reading.
It reaches the whole family. Notice at the beginning how children are encouraged to read the Word and follow the sermon. There aren’t any bouncers at the doors of this church.
The focus is on Jesus. These sermons are a careful study of Jesus and his grace. The first one, Marveling and Moved, invites you to sit and watch the Savior for as long as you possibly can. Furguson, through the Gospel, paints a picture of a loving Savior from whom you would never want to avert your eyes.
It is expository exaltation. When you hear the Word of God preached well, how can you not worship? As Piper said,
Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It feeds the sheep. These sermons are excellent examples of how we can eat the Word. Learning anew of Jesus’ grace is life changing. Although these sermons don’t start out promising to solve some felt need, their life application is at once profound and practical.
It witnesses to the lost. After listening to the Word of God being proclaimed so clearly to the saints, how would you not want to know Jesus as your Savior? Furguson shows that good preaching to Christians is inherently evangelistic.
The accent is just right. Reformed theology and Scottish accents just work so well together (sorry, pastor).
Perry is a gifted communicator and teacher, and his biblical wisdom and leadership insights exceed his years.
I’ve seen a lot of Noble’s leadership insights on his blog, so that part of the bio isn’t terribly remarkable, even though IMHO they’re generally recycled authoritarian corporate bromides (the sort that Keep-Pushing Furtick is also quite fond of).
My impression is that Noble’s skill is in preaching simple messages in personal and controversial ways. There’s obviously great value to repeating old and obvious truths, but I don’t know that you’d claim it as special wisdom.
I suspect that the Catalyst bio is boilerplate PR hype, and I’d be surprised if there are many NewSpringers whose primary reason for attending was to hear Noble’s advanced Biblical wisdom. Given Noble’s tendency to denigrate advanced Biblical knowledge, to give him credit for so much unique wisdom seems creative.
That said, however, I don’t listen to many of Noble’s sermons, and I don’t know the details of Noble’s theological insights as well as a regular NewSpringer might. I would like to know what you’ve heard from Noble, after you strip away the personal anecdotes, insults and jokes, that would constitute surprisingly deep biblical wisdom.
I’ve told you why I discount the Catalyst description (and for all we know, Noble probably does as well), but I’m genuinely interested in what the Catalyst leaders and Noble fans are hearing from his preaching that sounds so biblically wise.
The comments will stay open for a week. Please jump in, make your pastor look good, and educate us.
(Note, the comments for this post are intended as an opportunity for Noble supporters. Posts that just jump all over him will probably be deleted.)
Earlier, I posted Furtick’s reasoning for Elevation church growth, which included:
We worship Jesus and preach the Gospel with excellence.
This brought up the question, how do you preach the Gospel with excellence? First of all, I should say that I have a problem with the way these churches use the word excellence. I may do a full post on it in the future, but for now, I’ll just say that I think it basically becomes an idol. The workers end up serving the pastor’s idea of excellence rather than serving the Lord. Again though, that’s a different subject for a different day.
I suppose a great place for me to start a discussion on MY OPINION of what constitutes preaching with excellence would be the text that I already provided in the Church Growth post. In Acts 2, Peter addresses a large crowd of Jews saying:
14Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17” ‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams. 18Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy. 19I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’[c]
*DOWNING INTERJECTS* - Note that Peter – who was an apostle, spent much time with Jesus, and later actually authored Scripture – relied on Scripture as the meat of His sermon. This is not a vision from Peter’s imagination. He is speaking from the Word of God.
22“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
*ME AGAIN* – WOW. Read that last verse again. Does Peter appear to be trying to be relevant to the culture here? Not at all. In fact, he flew right in the face of culture and blamed them for killing the son of God. He couldn’t have been more opposed to the culture at this point. In fact, it’s pretty amazing that Peter didn’t become the first martyr right then. Can’t say I’ve ever heard today’s excellent preachers say anything that would put them in danger of being lynched.
24But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25David said about him:
” ‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken. 26Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope, 27because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 28You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’[e]
*ME* – More scripture? What is this guy, a Bible know it all? (Thanks to Lauren for the phrase.)
29“Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ,[f] that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 33Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,
” ‘The Lord said to my Lord:
”Sit at my right hand 35until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.” ‘[g]
*ME* – Even more Scripture? Must be a powerful preaching tool.
36“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
*Note the confrontation to the culture, yet again.
37When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
40With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
In summary, Peter spoke nothing but the truth. No jokes, cute stories, awesome videos…just the plain, blunt truth. He relied heavily on scripture to get across his message. It wasn’t an afterthought that he dug up to fit his purpose. He didn’t adjust his message so that it would be relevant to the culture. Instead, he attacked the culture head-on and exposed it for what it was. You see, what is relevant today will be irrelevant tomorrow. However, Peter’s sermon will stand until the end of time. That’s excellence.
In this very special audio version of his blog, Pastor Furtick and a few special guests from his creative team have a round table discussion about how the sermon series are planned at Elevation. In an act of selfless bravery, I listened to all thirty minutes of this, so that you don’t have to. You can thank me later.
Here is what we learn about the process from this enlightening discussion:
1.) Steven gets lots of really cool ideas. It may come from watching the Foo Fighters, listening to T.D. Jakes, or talking to his kids, but just know, Steven comes up with tons of really cool ideas.
2.) Steven is really cool.
3.) The ideas for sermon series come from Steven’s imagination.
4.) Steven is unique and relevant.
5.) Sometimes, Steven lets the creative team help him to form his really cool ideas, but sometimes he doesn’t.
6.) Steven is a visionary. (Actually referred to himself in this way.)
7.) After Steven shares his awesomely cool ideas, the creative team does things like “build a brand” and “create a buzz.” Not really sure what those terms mean as they relate to church, but they seem to be getting increasingly popular among the seeker types.
Not a lot was said about Scripture, except a couple of subtle jabs towards Pastors who teach eighty-one week series on the book of Genesis, and things like that. So basically, in thirty minutes, we learned that the ideas for the series come from Steven’s “vision”, and everything else falls in line after that. Oh yeah, and that Steven is really cool.
What I found more interesting was the spreadsheet that they use to help for the series:
Note the placement and wording of question number 7. “What Scriptures do you think you’ll use during this series?” Wait…you mean to tell me we’ve already came up with the concept for this series, with how we want it to make people feel, movie tie-ins, target audience but haven’t decided upon Scripture backing for this series yet? Wow.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen multiple times where Furtick and Noble have made great errors in misapplying Scripture, and we’ve wondered how that could keep happening. I think we’ve found our answer. At least in Furtick’s case, he openly admits to dreaming up cool, gimmicky sermon series, and only later tries to come back and tie in Scripture to justify his stance. If you are selective enough, and willing to ignore context, you can make the Bible seem to say anything you want. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, David Koresh, and Jim Jones all claimed Scriptural backing for their whacked-out beliefs. This is exactly opposite of how a Pastor (or anyone else) should approach Scripture. The Furtick model is to decide what you belief and then try to find some Scripture to back that up. We should always approach the Scripture first, and let God’s Word dictate what we believe.
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.
