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.

Real wisdom from Furtick

A really promising tweet from Furtick tonight.

It’s hard to differentiate between a vision & a delusion-both cause you to see things that no one else sees.

No sarcasm here; it’s good that he’s recognizing this.

Muddying the vision problem

Noble compounds his slippery personal revelation problem with this weekend tweet:

Being filled with vision doesn’t always mean that God is inspiring us…but rather that He’s disturbing us!

Two quick points.

1. He acknowledges that vision does equal inspiration. Even though he assures us that it doesn’t “always” mean inspiration, the implication is that it is often inspiration. As we’ve discussed before, inspiration is a very special theological term, and, in most Protestant churches, it’s not a term that pastors apply to themselves.
2. Such visions are infallible. Not only are they inspired, they can’t be wrong (an automatic quality of inspiration, anyway). If a pastor’s vision fails your Biblical test and disturbs you, it just proves that the vision is correct and you need to obey.

For a some background on the problem of senior pastors leading churches through their visions from God check these posts.

Tunnel Vision

Steven Furtick via twitter:

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?

Manipulation 101

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

Steven has a tendency to take a few words out of a Bible verse, and conveniently build doctrine around it. With his added emphasis on the four words in the above verse, it looks like he’s up to his old tricks again.

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:

1. 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.
2. Take note of human nature. People want power. People want influence. People want acceptance. Play on those desires.
3. Make the people believe that what you want is really what they want. Then, they will work hard to get you what you want.

Noble describes his vision

Perry Noble delivered his much anticipated presentation at Catalyst this morning and taught about vision. In case you weren’t able to attend, here’s some of what you missed.

When we make any agenda of the church anything other than Jesus, we make the church a prostitute….

You need a Holy Ghost enema….

God will always test a church planter in the first year to find out if he is a prophet or a prostitute.

What has he been watching lately?

Some more:

If Andy Stanley walked into your church, what change would he make?

First, Stanley would rewrite your Bibles. I wonder if it might be better to wonder what Jesus and Paul would do if they visited your church.

Don’t lead from inspiration, lead from revelation.

Many religious leaders have found that telling your followers to do something because God told you is very effective.

You should be able to see your vision and feel it.

If you can feel your vision, you probably need to see a doctor.

God is waiting for us to step up and take action.

God needs a hand. Hurry up!

Running the Numbers

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?

• Here he paints Bible study in a negative light.
• Here he teaches that too much bible study is a bad thing, and we should avoid learning about things like the doctrines of Grace. Gotta be careful about Spiritual Obesity.

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:

1. They don’t believe it is powerful. Surely if these pastors thought the Word of God held any power, they would encourage their members to study it as much as possible. It would make their job easier. We’ve seen how they don’t want to give individual attention to members, so at least leading them to God’s word would ensure they were being fed.
2. They don’t believe it is God’s word. If studying the Bible is listening to God, then it is impossible to study too much. If God has chosen to reveal himself to us through this book, then we should spend as much time as possible learning about him.
3. They believe there is a better method for hearing God. This is particularly bothersome, considering their dependence on personal revelation.
4. They find it threatening. They are afraid that Christians well-versed in Scripture will start raising questions about things going on in the church.

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.

Solving the vision problem

What’s the alternative to claiming special infallible visions from God? Although we’ve criticized Noble and Furtick in recent days for their grand vision pronouncements, how should they lead their churches when they feel so driven by God’s visions?

Simple. Instead of saying “God told me,” they should lead by prefacing their visions with “I think” or “I want.”

Here are some problems with the God-told-me approach.

1. It claims infallibility. When a leader says “God says,” it really takes the leader out of the equation and suggests that if you think the vision is wrong or unwise, you have a problem with God. We’ve seen specific examples of this kind of thinking from Noble and Furtick. Because God is never wrong or unwise, we are forced to yield to these visions as being perfectly right and good.
2. It demands unquestioning obedience. This follows from the first point. If God said it, every Christian must obey it. If you’re a leader, it’s a wonderful tool to be able to wield, where your very words are perceived as demands from God.
3. It turns questions into fractious divisions. If, on the other hand, we wonder whether a leader’s vision really is straight from the throne of Heaven (PP, for example), we are castigated as not only being against the man, but being against the kingdom of God. As I pointed out yesterday, it gets to the point where Noble considers his critics as being in the family of the Devil more than in the family of God.

Here are some advantages of the I-think approach.

• It depends on wisdom. Unless a leader can point to chapter and verse (God’s special revelation), anything else is a product of human wisdom. By God’s grace, he has given us wisdom, which should be informed by Scripture with the Holy Spirit’s help. We are expected to use it. To say that a decision is a product of human wisdom does not necessarily mean it’s wrong, but it doesn’t claim infallibility for itself. It is possible, however, that is is wrong.
• It makes leaders take responsibility. When a leader claims God’s revelation for his decisions, he can also blame God for the results. If the leader is leading based on personal wisdom, it forces him to count the cost and take responsibility for consequences.
• It demands responsibility and discernment by hearers. Even though Paul was speaking the very words of God to the Bereans, he consented to having them test his words to discern that they were true. Repeatedly, Scripture tells us to test the words of our leaders to see if they conform to God’s word. If the leader claims divine inspiration, there is no possibility or need to test the words. In the Biblical model, followers must take responsibility for the words of the leader, and need to correct or abandon false teachers.
• It leaves room for disagreement. If it’s possible that a leader’s decisions may be unwise, there is space for criticism and correction. For example, when Perry Noble asked his tweets whether he should wear the grope-your-wife T-shirt, he was asking whether it was wise to do that, and we perceived an invitation to help him with his decision–something I complimented him on in the subsequent discussion. On the other hand, when he said that God told him to play Highway to Hell in church, no criticism is brooked, even though many of us PPers see that as a very unwise act.
• It distinguishes between God’s revelation and a leader’s passion. Noble’s reference to a deeply felt vision a few days ago was a good clue to what these really are–his personal hopes and goals for the church. Every leader should have goals for where he wants to lead, and it is perfectly appropriate to communicate them as such. What is inappropriate is when the leader takes his goals and raises them to the level of special revelation. A Holy Spirit-led leader will often have his goals coincide with God’s purpose for the church, and we pray for our leaders that that is the case. A Holy Spirit-led leader will also know that there’s a difference between what comes out of God’s mouth and what comes out of his, and he’ll be careful to make sure that his followers understand that difference as well.

Question me, Oppose God

We’ve seen over the last few days how Furtick and Noble continue to insist that people believe their visions and that no questions or criticisms of their actions in pursuit of those visions can be tolerated. There is a deep danger in the way that they present their pronouncements as infallible, and then boldly and quickly pronounce anathema on their critics.

Let’s look at some examples of each.

1. Infallibility. Furtick specificially told us that when he hears from God, no-one may question him. The only reason that questions would be off the table is if you were sure that what you heard from God, and what you speak in response to it, is infallible. The consequence, as Noble has said, is that the leader must not be doubted.
   

   A leader should never allow doubters to dictate the direction of their ministry…when God speaks our obsession MUST be complete obedience!

   Not only does Noble not want to hear from any doubters, he dare not even think about them.

   When God puts a word inside of you – “what would others think about this?” is a question that completely dishonors Him!!! HE MATTERS!!!

   To ensure the aura of infallibility, they also present their behaviors and words as irrefutable. If you agree with it, it must be true, but if you disagree with it, it must be even truer. See if you can follow the logic in this Noble argument:

   Church planter–do what God called you to do…if people are speaking out against you…it probably means God has spoken into you and you are being obedient.

   Don’t waste the time God has given you on those who don’t like you…ever! If what you are doing is of God then critics can’t stop it!

   Although we’ve addressed the appeal to fatalism on this blog before, this is a more aggressive variation, where because something is is proof that it should be. Under this logic, a leader can never be disobedient so long as he’s being effective and being criticized.

2. Condemnation. If leaders represent God’s truth when they speak and act, the next step is to argue that anyone who opposes them is opposing God. Noble forcefully and literally demonizes his critics.
   

   The only person who would criticize a move of God is a jealous, angry, bitter person. And the other thought is that God would NEVER lead a person to criticize something that He in involved in. Well…uh…let’s see–if the criticism is not God led–then who is responsible? Hmm…just know that if you are doing what God desires…and you are being criticized…then it will help to view the critic as a tool of satan. (I make no apologies for that statement!!!) [emphasis added]

   When it comes to dealing with critics…Jesus dealt with them. Remember the Pharisees? And when it came to dealing with them He pulled no punches, He even referred to them as snakes, vipers, and whitewashed tombs. This is the attitude I have to take–that the religious will always criticize a move of God…and it breaks my heart because when you boil it down–even though the Pharisees were religious–they didn’t have a relationship with Jesus!

   Notice the equivalence. Someone who criticizes Noble is ipso facto criticizing Jesus, which means that they cannot be a part of the family of God.

   Here’s another example of Noble characterizing his critics as heathen, while mixing in his irrefutable logic (that is, if you criticize him, it proves that he is right).

   I honestly believe that a true follower of Jesus Christ will make religious people both uncomfortable and angry…and as long as those are the men and women shooting the arrows at me then I know I am walking in the right path.  (John 15:18-21)

   It’s not that I don’t care about you guys…it’s that I care enough to ignore you!  You see, if what we are doing is wrong and sinful then the Lord will handle us…but if what we are doing here at NewSpring Church is of God…you can’t stop it (Acts 5:35-39) and are actually not opposing us…but Him.  (BTW…you lose!)

There are several notable implications from this approach. First, is it really smart to be raising the stakes so high that you call the faith of your critics into question just for raising a question? Noble is drawing a line in the sand and saying that he’s on the Christian side of it, and the rest of us are on Satan’s side. When you’re a leader of a movement that is sensitive to some people calling it cultish, separating the family of God into saved and unsaved depending on your fidelity to a human leader is hardly going to make those fears go away. We critics are often pressed to affirm that we believe we’re all on the same side. The are you all on the same team? question would more fruitfully be asked of people like Perry Noble.

Second, what are you communicating to your own followers about the worth and dignity of Christians who are outside of your movement and, based on their own commitment to the Word of God, question the beliefs and methods of these charismatic leaders? When you call us sons and daughters of the Devil, what kinds of passions do you unleash and endorse among your true believers?

Blinding visions

PN gives us another glimpse of his glorious vision:

A white hot vision from God that is deeply felt and clearly defined causes hell to freak out!!!

Not God.

Not God’s Word.

Not Jesus’ resurrection.

But Perry’s infallible vision.

Let me ask this: How many Old Testament prophets experienced visions as deeply felt and clearly defined as Noble?

How do you deeply feel a vision, anyway? Doesn’t that tell us that they’re just personal goals (not that there’s anything wrong with that), not actual visions?

On such foundations are cults built

Perry Noble tells us not to question him; today, Steven Furtick tells us not to question his revelation.

A sampling of today’s dangerous wisdom:

Sometimes you’ll have an encounter with God that’s so intense you can’t reveal it to everyone in your life. …

Sometimes God plants a vision in your heart so outrageous that you need to keep it to yourself for a while. …

Sometimes you’ll feel out of place when you come down from the mountain after meeting with God.  It may take time for the people surrounding you to get adjusted to the new reality.  Sometimes you’ll have to cover your vision with a veil until what you’ve seen becomes clear to others too.  Don’t take it as an insult.  Don’t question the validity of your revelation. [Emphasis added]

Just thank God that your vision is too luminous for human eyes to behold.
It’s a sign of a very bright future.

Can someone tell me how these words would be out of place coming from a David Koresh or a Jim Jones?

Going beyond ridicule

A few days ago I referenced Noble’s tweet about the future of the church in a way that was intended to dismiss it with a deserved bit of ridicule. To refresh your memories, here’s what he said:

WHAT IF this past 2,000 years of the church was merely the foundation to set up what God REALLY wants to do? That thought pumps me up!

The more I think about it, the more I think this warrants a more substantial response.

1. It contravenes Scripture. This was the essence of my first post. Jesus laid the foundation of the church in Matthew 16:18. All the church needed was provided by Jesus and the apostles and can be found in Scripture. There can only be one foundation for the church, and it was created two thousand years ago.
2. It contradicts special revelation. The most galling aspect of Noble’s thought is one of the words he emphasized: REALLY. Think about that idea and let it roll around in your mind. What is Noble saying? God has been hiding his real intentions from us. When we read Paul’s instructions to the church in Corinthians, for example, we can ignore that because it’s not really what God was meaning for the church. Appalling.
3. It condescends to the saints. According to Noble, the last two millennia were merely a foundation for today. Merely–another word to linger on. There’s an awful lot of amazing history dismissed by that arrogant word. Augustine. Aquinas. Luther. Calvin. Spurgeon. Graham. Persecutions. Reformation and revivals. Never mind them. There are merely mere.
4. It contains secret knowledge. This is the dangerous bit. If we believe what Noble says, and if he really believes it himself, what that means is that God has a new blueprint for the church that has been hidden until now. We will learn what it is from special leaders who receive special visions from God that they expect their followers to commit to.
5. It creates space for error. If Noble can establish that the church is about to change is form and function, he can make whatever rules and set whatever standards he likes. Because it need not be based on Scripture, it will necessarily be wrong. It will also be impossible to criticize his beliefs because it will be impossible to tie him down to the standard of Scripture. Noble is notoriously slippery when it comes to defending himself.
   

   People will question our motives and our ministry. But our goal in all of this should not be to try to explain ourselves but to simply keep our eyes on the Lord and strive to become more like Him. If we spend too much time explaining ourselves we won’t have time to actually do what it is God has commanded of us in the first place!

   If you can simply show that how you do church conforms to the established Scriptural standard, there’s no need for your defense to take very long. If the Bible compels listeners to test teachers, I think you might also say that a true Biblical teacher will be happy to show that he can pass those tests. They didn’t bother Paul. If Noble spent as much time defending his beliefs and behaviors as he does complaining about being questioned, we’d all be much better off.

   If, on the other hand, he is doing church a new way and on the basis of special personal revelation, he’d better find every excuse he can to not submit to those tests and to keep doing what his vision compels him do to.

To be clear, I am not making a case here that Noble is doing church in violation of Scripture. I am pointing out that he is clearing space for himself that makes that not only possible, but difficult for his followers to detect and impossible for his critics to correct.

Shooting wildly with blurred vision

If you spend any time listening or reading modern church leaders like Perry Noble and Steven Furtick, you know that they are driven by vision. Their job is to cast vision, and everybody else’s job is to follow the leader’s vision.

It’s a leaders job to cast vision and focus people on the future, not to be in a constant state of comparison. I wrestle with this–every leader I know does; however, I honestly believe that the more passionate and obsessive we become about VISION…the more of a difference God will allow our churches to have.

Church members are expected to believe the vision religiously. They are something to be believed in.

People DO BELIEVE in the vision God has placed IN you.

Violations of vision obedience usually prompt vigorous discipline. As I’ve documented before, that can range from strong questioning to involuntary resignations.

As much as they build their careers and churches on the first part of Proverbs 29:18, visionary leaders rarely quote the entire verse:

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

(Check out the Google results from Noble’s blog for “vision and perish” and the results for “vision and perish and law.”)

The word vision is not the same as we use in corporate vision statements. The word has a number of possible meanings:

• a) vision (in ecstatic state)
• b) vision (in night)
• c) vision, oracle, prophecy (divine communication)
• d) vision (as title of book of prophecy)

In the context of this verse, it refers to God’s inspired Word. Notice the contrast in the but. People who don’t listen to God’s Word cast off restraint, but blessed are the people who listen and obey it. The antidote to perishing is not to cast vision, but to keep the law.

In fact, visions in the Old Testament usually describe things to be avoided. Scan the minor prophets, for example, to see how often visions are descriptions of God’s consuming punishment for sin. They are never blissful dreams of future goodness; prophets who cast such positive visions are condemned (Ezekiel 13:16, Jeremiah 23:16-18). Another way to translate the verse might be something like

Where there is no certain threat of God’s devastating punishment, the people will act carelessly and without restraint, but people who obey God’s law will be blessed. (Proverbs 29:18, Duncan translation)

As Lance Rowlett points out, the common misapplication of the verse is ironic.

Properly interpreted, this passage is a timeless call to proper proclamation of Truth. But in order to properly proclaim God’s Word, we must properly interpret it.

Of late, though, the passage has been improperly interpreted, thus improperly applied to ministry. And that is the irony–a verse that implies the need for correct handling of God’s Word has been improperly handled (cf. 2 Tim. 2:15), and thus ends up extinguishing its own intent.

So-called visions can be dangerous and wrong. Many times in the Old Testament, God’s people are warned away from false teachers casting their own visions.

See Jeremiah 23:16, for example (all of these verses use the same word for vision as Proverbs 29).

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.

Here’s another example from Ezekiel 7:26.

Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders.

One more from Jeremiah 14:14.

Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds.

At least Perry Noble realizes that his own visions are risky.

I believe that if a leader is consistently spending time with Jesus and being set on fire that, from time to time, he or she will cast a vision that is so bold that everyone in the room becomes uncomfortably excited!

The comforting thing for Noble is that if someone points out that the vision is false, it’s actually proof that it’s correct.

He must understand that if the vision is from the Lord it will be attacked…people will not like it…it will get personal…BUT, even when all of these things happen he simply will not back down from what he knows the Lord has spoken into him.

Confidence is casting a strong vision and asking others to join you…

When someone asks you to follow a vision, especially when it’s not God’s certain revelation, run for your lives.

A vision of congressional-strength hypocrisy

Perry Noble was at it again a few days ago, criticizing other pastors for drawing a paycheck.

Unfortunately for some church leaders passion isn’t their motivation…a paycheck is…and because of that their vision is “always for sale!”

The curious thing about this particular complaint is that, while PN is probably the highest-paid pastor in the state, he earns his money precisely from selling his vision.

Selling vision to the congregation is one of the highest priorities a pastor can have, according to Noble.

My advice…get alone with God–develop a vision…a GOD SIZED vision.  Share that vision with people–challenge them to get on board.  The ones that can’t–let them leave–it’s ok, people walked away from Jesus, they will walk away from you as well.  AND then continually cast that vision over and over and over again.

Do you suppose if Noble changed his vision radically, he’d still get his paycheck? Not that that’s likely:

When you cast a compelling vision…it will fire some people up and piss some people off…

And the ones that are pissed are usually the most vocal.

But you can’t allow the pissed to trump the passion God has placed inside of you!

AND…you’ve got to understand that there are people ON BOARD!  People DO BELIEVE in the vision God has placed IN you.

Yesterday I picked up Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church book for a series of posts I’m developing for next week, and found this instruction to pastors that helps us understand why Noble is such a visionary.

People give to vision, not to need. …It is not the neediest institutions that attract contributions but those with the greatest vision….

If your church is constantly short on cash, check out your vision. Is it clear? Is it being communicated effectively? Money flows to God-given, Holy Spirit-inspired ideas. Churches with money problems often actually have a vision problem. (p. 202)

Did you catch that? Vision is a money-making device, completely divorced from actual need.

So, Noble complaining about pastors being paid for their vision is like Obama and Pelosi complaining about people flying in private jets.

Just a little rich.