This book cuts through a lot of the fat the churc has layered on over the centuries. It is amazing how much of what we call church has been taken from pagan worship.
The folks at Willow Creek would do well to start by reading this book.
Posted on 05/16/2008 12:06:26 AM PDT by Gamecock
After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.
cut
Since 1975, Willow Creek has avoided conventional church approaches, using its Sunday services to reach the unchurched through polished music, multimedia, and sermons referencing popular culture and other familiar themes.
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.....surveyed congregants at Willow Creek and six other churches, suggested that evangelistic impact was greater from those who self-reported as "close to Christ" or "Christ-centered" than from new church attendees. In addition, a quarter of the "close to Christ" and "Christcentered" crowd described themselves as spiritually "stalled" or "dissatisfied" with the role of the church in their spiritual growth. Even more alarming to Willow Creek: About a quarter of the "stalled" segment and 63 percent of the "dissatisfied" segment contemplated leaving the church.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
***sermons referencing popular culture and other familiar themes.***
I have Oprah and Dr Phil for that.
What I need is a Savior.
YBPDLNPLP and a few others.
I find this very encouraging.
Pray this takes hold through out the nation.
GOOD MORNING SAINTS!
historically seeker sensitive outreach has allways,”burnt away”:
A PERIOD OF CHANGE IN CHURCH HISTORY THAT IMPACTED OUR COLLECTIVE THOUGHTS AND THE MODERN FACE OF CHRISTIANITY WE KNOW TODAY.
WHERE AND WHEN THIS OCCURRED IS ALONG THIS SECTION OF NEW YORK AND IMPACTED THE CHRISTIAN WORLD.
Charles Grandison Finney:
Charles Grandison Finney gave the region its name, referring to it as a “burnt district” because so many revivals had taken place there during America’s Second Great Awakening. Finney himself was born in Connecticut but migrated with his parents to western New York. He was starting a career as a lawyer when on Oct. 10, 1821, he saw a brilliant light in his law office and underwent an immediate conversion at the age of 29: “ I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus.” He became a missionary to Jefferson County for the Female Missionary Society of the Western District of New York. He rejected traditional Calvinist theology and Unitarianism and became a founder of New School Presbyterianism that emphasized an evangelistic style of religion, pioneering new techniques of revivalism called the “New Measures” used by a growing number of disciples called the “Holy Band.” He was a charismatic speaker, tall, handsome, with striking blue eyes and a dramatic voice. When he spoke, his body writhed and he seemed possessed by the Holy Spirit. From his ordination in 1824 until his death in 1875, he was the most popular preacher in America. Thousands came to his tent meetings in Utica, Rome, Auburn and Troy. In October 1825 he began preaching every night in the town of Western, continued throughout the winter, beginning the first of what he called the “great Western revivals.” He pioneered revival meetings in large cities after 1827.
tent revival meeting:
His Rochester revival in 1830 was described as intense, lasting weeks with hundreds of “inquiry meetings” and praying for individuals by name and putting them on the “anxious seat” for public prayer and granting them immediate admission into church membership upon public demonstration of conversion. He promoted temperance and women’s rights, allowing women to pray in public during his revivals. He founded a newspaper, the New York Evangelist, with financial support from Lewis and Arthur Tappan. In 1835, Finney became president of Oberlin College in Ohio and wrote a handbook for revival ministers. He blazed the trail that would later be followed by Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham.
MORMONISM,JEHOVAH WITNESSES,7th.DAY ADVENTISTS AND WHAT WE KNOW AS THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT ALL BEGAN AND WHERE STEEPED IN THE SAME ERA AND AS WE HAVE SEEN, AS BEFORE THE DIFFERENT BELIEF SYSTEMS MORPHED TOGETHER AND BIRTHED COUNTLESS “CHURCHES”.
WHY THEN WAS AND IS THIS CALLED THE BURNT-OVER DISTRICT?
Predictably, most of Finney’s spiritual heirs lapsed into apostasy, Socinianism, mere moralism, cultlike perfectionism, and other related errors. In short, Finney’s chief legacy was confusion and doctrinal compromise. Evangelical Christianity virtually disappeared from western New York in Finney’s own lifetime. Despite Finney’s accounts of glorious “revivals,” most of the vast region of New England where he held his revival campaigns fell into a permanent spiritual coldness during Finney’s lifetime and more than a hundred years later still has not emerged from that malaise. This is directly owing to the influence of Finney and others who were simultaneously promoting similar ideas.
The Western half of New York became known as “the burnt-over district,” because of the negative effects of the revivalist movement that culminated in Finney’s work there. These facts are often obscured in the popular lore about Finney. But even Finney himself spoke of “a burnt district” [Memoirs, 78], and he lamented the absence of any lasting fruit from his evangelistic efforts. He wrote,
I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state [cited in B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1932), 2:24].
One of Finney’s contemporaries registered a similar assessment, but more bluntly:
During ten years, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is admitted, that real converts are comparatively few. It is declared, even by [Finney] himself, that “the great body of them are a disgrace to religion” [cited in Warfield, 2:23].
B. B. Warfield cited the testimony of Asa Mahan, one of Finney’s close associates,
. . . who tells us—to put it briefly—that everyone who was concerned in these revivals suffered a sad subsequent lapse: the people were left like a dead coal which could not be reignited; the pastors were shorn of all their spiritual power; and the evangelists—”among them all,” he says, “and I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them—I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor.”
Thus the great “Western Revivals” ran out into disaster. . . . Over and over again, when he proposed to revisit one of the churches, delegations were sent him or other means used, to prevent what was thought of as an affliction. . . . Even after a generation had passed by, these burnt children had no liking for the fire [Warfield, 2:26-28].
Finney grew discouraged with the revival campaigns and tried his hand at pastoring in New York City before accepting the presidency of Oberlin College. During those post-revivalist years, he turned his attention to devising a doctrine of Christian perfectionism. Perfectionist ideas, in vogue at the time, were a whole new playground for serious heresy on the fringes of evangelicalism—and Finney became one of the best-known advocates of perfectionism. The evil legacy of the perfectionism touted by Finney and friends in the mid-nineteenth century has been thoroughly critiqued by B. B. Warfield in his important work Studies in Perfectionism. Perfectionism was the logical consequence of Finney’s Pelagianism, and its predictable result was spiritual disaster.
Galatians 2:21
“I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
(NKJV)
THE GENERAL MALAISE FROM EMOTIONAL CONVICTION OF SIN AND ENTERTAINING CONVERSION EXPERIANCES WHERE AND IS EVIDENT.
LAST WEEK I WAS LISTENING TO LIGONIER MINISTRIES AND DR. SPROUL WAS TEACHING A SERMON,TITLED. “REGENERATION – A SOVERIEGN ACT”.
HE STATED THAT MOST CHRISTIANS DO NOT KNOW HOW THEY WHERE SAVED.I AGREE!
YOU CAN NOT WRITE YOUR NAME IN THE LAMB’S BOOK OF LIFE,A PLEDGE CARD OR WALK DOWN THE AISLE DOES NOT DO IT, JESUS DOES NOT HAND OUT PENS!
Joh 6:65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE ARE ACCEPTED TODAY MORE THAN THEY HAVE BEEN IN 100 YEARS.
CONVENTIONS, LIKE THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST HAVE LONG SHIRKED SOVERIEGN GRACE BECAUSE IT WAS INCORRECTLY BELIEVED THAT THEY WHERE NOT ENVAGELISTIC.
Calvin did not limit the preaching of the gospel to those considered to be elect. He explains his views more fully in his treatise on predestination:
Since we do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined and who does not, it befits us so to feel as to wish that all be saved. So it will come about that, whoever we come across, we shall study to make him a sharer of peace . . . even severe rebuke will be administered like medicine, lest they should perish or cause others to perish. But it will be for God to make it effective in those whom He foreknew and predestined.[6]
Calvin clearly encouraged Christians to be involved in evangelism! “It befits us” to desire all people to be saved. The result of this proper desire should make us try to lead everyone “we come across” to faith in Christ, for that is the only way they could share in peace. This is not to be a half-hearted effort. Christians are to use “even severe rebuke” if necessary to prevent others from ignoring the gospel and perishing. Christians must make the effort to evangelize everyone knowing that only God can save.
the sheep will move to grace filled meadows,they will migrate to where they can be fed!
the goats will,being dumb,stay,eat trash or move to a new more exciting trash pile!
5 SOLAS!
Well said my brother.
Church is the place to feed sheep, not amuse goats. (Spurgeon said that)
In place of gospel preaching, this “new-and-improved” variety of Christianity was substituting amusements. Spurgeon warned that many were turning the church into a “play-house,” allowing the values and techniques of the theater to invade the sanctuary of the Lord.
Spurgeon noted that many churches were no longer having prayer meetings. Spiritual fervor was dwindling, congregations were thinning, and enthusiasm for the gospel was quickly becoming extinct. “Alas! many are returning to the poisoned cups which drugged that declining generation. . . . Too many ministers are toying with the deadly cobra of ‘another gospel,’ in the form of ‘modern thought.’”[26]
Who was chiefly to blame for the decline? Spurgeon believed it was the preachers: “The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith. . . . Germany was made unbelieving by her preachers, and England is following in her tracks.”[27]
Spurgeon made no effort to disguise his contempt for the modernists: “These destroyers of our churches appear to be as content with their work as monkeys with their mischief. That which their fathers would have lamented they rejoice in: the alienation of the poor and simple-minded from their ministry they accept as a compliment, and the grief of the spiritually-minded they regard as an evidence of their power.”[28]
http://www.spurgeon.org/downgrd.htm
THE DOWN-GRADE FORCED SPURGEON TO LEAVE THE BAPTIST UNION,THEY LOST,”THE PRINCE OF THE PREACHERS”.
WOE TO THEM,THEN AND OF COURSE NOW THEY ARE APOSTATE.
MY PRAYERS FOR YOU MY BRETHREN,IS SERVE THE KING,FEED THE FLOCK AND IF ANY MAN-CENTERED WALLS ARE CAUSING DIVISION WHERE YOU PRESENTLY ATTEND WORSHIP,LEAVE!
Ac 13:51 But they shook off the dust from their feet against them, and came to Iconium.
DO NOT JUST GO ALONG,TO GET ALONG!
SOON I’LL START TEACHING A NEW SERIES,TITLED “THE MARK OF A SAINT”
I appreciate all of the recent posts quoting or citing Mr. Spurgeon, a clarion voice for two full centuries.
“Spurgeon warned that many were turning the church into a “play-house,” allowing the values and techniques of the theater to invade the sanctuary of the Lord.”
This was the ring in the preaching of Bible-believing Baptists, Plymouth Brethren, and other prophetic preachers of his day.
Search the Internet for THINGS TO COME, A JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, published periodically in England from 1894 to 1915. In every issue there were brief pieces exposing the worldly trends in the churches even in that day. Using the world’s entertainment to attract people is nothing new. In those pieces you will find interesting parallels to what is happening today in the megachurches in America and elsewhere. It is the APOSTASY. It was recognized and innunciated by the true in-depth Bible students and preachers at the turn of the 20th century. The warnings have been ignored by the denominational churches and their training institutions since that time, especially since 1950.
At least they were alarmed. I've witnessed mainstream churches bleeding members who don't care and don't plan to continue to preach anything but their societal based doctrine.
Matt Branagh at CT quotes some folks who say WC is making a fundamental shift, but the evidence from the “Reveal” study isn’t so clear cut. A fundamental shift at WC would for them to abandon their dated, failed, seeker model (in other words repent) and to embrace a Christ-centered, means of grace oriented approach to ministry of Word and sacrament. According one person quoted here whenever WC has attempted to introduce the least bit of substance to their morning services attendance suffers.Good thing Jesus never said anything unpleasant or he might have been really unpopular. Oh wait a minute. He did and he got crucified for it. Well, that’ll never sell.
Has WC really changed? No. Have they abandoned a market-driven approach to ministry? No. What’s their plan for those who want to grow and become more mature in the faith? They plan to teach them to be “self-feeders.”
Yes, I think Jesus said something like that.
“Peter, if you love me, teach my sheep to feed themselves.
‘Peter do you love me? Teach my sheep to be self-feeders’
‘Peter, do you love me?” ’You know I do Lord.’ ‘Teach my sheep to be self-feeders
I too find this announcement encouraging.
There was an article a few months(?) ago in which Hybels admitted that the seeker-sensitive stuff wasn’t working. Perhaps this is the result of that epiphany; hopefully it means Willow Creek will take a more scriptural approach.
Oh, how I had hoped that it really was encouraging, Gamecock...
But, unfortunately, Willow Creek is just using the popular man-made survey approach, again. They used this approach to establish the church and now they are using the approach to to meet the crowds ever changing tastes. The crowd no longer wants the "entertainment church". The crowd, as shown in the survey, now wants something more "spiritual".
So what will Hybel's give the crowd, now?
It is something that existed already at Willow Creek in a smaller dose...but it appears that Hybel's is ready to give it to them in a much bigger dose: hard core mysticism and the social gospel.
As evidence, Hybel's just had Brian McLaren, an emergent heretic, speak at Willow Creek, on the "shift" that is taking place, and that must take place, in Christianity. McLaren's proposed shift is a shift away from biblically-based orthodox Christianity towards a religion of mysticism and the social gospel.
While Willow Creek's conclusion that the seeker sensitive approach does not work is correct (as many have said from the beginning)...Their remedy associated with their conclusion is EVEN WORSE!
- the existence of a literal hell
- the atonement of Christ on the cross (among other statements on the subject, he endorsed a book that calls penal substitutionary atonement "cosmic child abuse")
- that homosexuality is a sin
- the Gospel
- all that...and so much more
This is the "huge shift" that Willow Creek is talking about.
Seeker = customer
No doubt - I’m in a “seeker sensitive” church. It was great to bring us all into the faith, but now it seems to be the equivalent of eating marshmallows for breakfast every Sunday.
I even talked with one of the lead pastors recently about whether they were concerned about being “offensive”.
For those seeking more “meat”, they are offering a Wednesday night, bible centered service that dives into the meat of topics more thoroughly than the Sunday service.
Well, they have a message based on a theme, go into that for a while, then talk about the bible references.
But! They’ve gotten better - putting the bible references at the fore, then applying them to the topic.
The emphasis Christians place on the traditional Christian doctrines of hell and the second coming of Jesus inhibits believers from living effective lives of service in this world, according to speaker and author Brian McLaren.
McLaren explained his views April 9-10 at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., as a featured speaker during the Willow Creek Association's annual Shift student ministries conference. During the conference's opening session, Bo Boshers, executive director of student ministries for the Willow Creek Association, said he does not agree with all McLaren's views but that all youth ministers should consider his thoughts.
In his most recent book, "Everything Must Change" (Thomas Nelson), McLaren commends Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels as one of only a handful of evangelical leaders properly addressing global poverty and equity for the world's population.
"Some of us came from a religious tradition or a religious background where our main role was to recruit kids to go to heaven," said McLaren, a controversial leader within the emerging church movement. "And that's a good thing. Mortality rates are still pretty high, and we all have to face that decision. But I'm here to challenge you to think bigger and deeper and in more layers and dimensions about your role."
In a later conference breakout session, McLaren elaborated, "There are some ideas that are not truly ideas of the Gospel but are ideas of the modern understanding of the Gospel. The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is modern rings that we put around the Bible. And what we need to do -- some of us in our thinking -- is to find the courage to snip the ring so that our faith ... can really have a future."
Though he did not specify at Willow Creek which traditional doctrines need revision, McLaren wrote in his 2007 book "Everything Must Change" that the doctrine of hell needs radical rethinking. He argues that people who believe in hell may be inclined to dominate and take advantage of other people, rather than help them.
"Many of us have been increasingly critical in recent years of popular American eschatology in general, and conventional views of hell in particular," he wrote. "Simply put, if we believe that God will ultimately enforce his will by forceful domination, and will eternally torture all who resist that domination, then torture and domination become not only permissible but in some way godly."
The orthodox understanding that Jesus will return at a future date and forcefully conquer all His enemies also needs rethinking, according to McLaren.
"This eschatological understanding of a violent second coming leads us to believe (as we've said before) that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion; no one should be surprised when those shaped by this theology behave accordingly," McLaren wrote.
The book of Revelation does not actually teach that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, he wrote, but that a new way of living is possible within this universe if humans will follow Jesus' example.
By going to the cross, McLaren argued in his book, Jesus committed an act similar to the Chinese student at Tiananmen Square in the late 1980s -- he placed himself in harm's way to demonstrate the injustice of a society that would harm a peaceful and godly man.
McLaren's views break harshly from traditional Christian theology that Jesus died on the cross as substitute for sinful humanity, taking the punishment that men and women deserved for their sin. Traditional Christian theology also contends that those who do not trust Jesus for their salvation will be punished in hell eternally for their sins and that Jesus will return at a future date to conquer all evil.
This "huge shift" ain't good!
Many good Christian leaders have difficulty perceiving the spirit of compromise. I went back to Willow Creek earlier this year only to discover my plans to serve in the women's ministry as a Biblical "Titus 2 woman" serving the younger were, in actuality, going to be a "spiritual guide" for a New Age Movement. Mystic ways of praying (repeating and meditation) and relating to God were being taught along with frequent references to Quakers. Terms like "covenant", "covenant groups", and "lectio divina" where frequently used. They gave out free books in the mentor training class in January (Sacred Companions by David G. Benner, and Spiritual Mentoring by Keith Anderson & Randy Reese). One class included a clip from the movie The Matrix. The movie was recommended and had keen insight for us in some way. We were told to avail ourselves to the classics of Roman Catholic mystics, and do timelines on our lives.
....The classics the women's ministry were instructing us to "avail to" were mystical writings from around the forth to fifteenth century. The mystics taught how to unclutter the mind and remove any rational thought so the mind is totally passive. This opened them up for the "Presence of God" which is actually a form of Zen meditation. Quaker quietists believe in a similar manner that "God is within" and they believe a "Quiet Revolution" is coming and declare there will be a coming incomparable "harvest." They are predicting the greatest harvesting of souls in the history of the world. An important difference to understand is that the Holy Spirit indwells us when we accept Jesus Christ and the occult meaning behind the concept of "the god within," "the light within," or "the Christ within" has a different meaning.
It's a strategy for ecumenism without regard for doctrine. Renovare is the organization behind this movement out of the traditions of Quakerism and it is directed by Rich Foster and William L. Vasivig.
At the Wednesday night service at WCCC we were introduced to a "spiritual formation leader", Mindy Caliguire. This was a special night of prayer for those who had concerns about our situation in Iraq and it was a last minute idea to fill-in because Randy Travis cancelled his concerts. It had received TV coverage due to the Iraq situation. This guide was not on TV but she led us in ways best described as of the "New Age." We were instructed to relax our arms and put our palms up and be silent and meditate. She was praised by Bill Hybels for how "deeply" she had just been praying and was introduced as someone who is very actively working behind the scenes in the spiritual direction of the elders and the church.
P;ease remove me from your ping list
gulfcoast6
Please remove me from your ping list.
Gulfcoast6
Pleasw remove me from your ping list
Gulfcoast6
But, all one has to do is look at who these promoter's of the "shift" are referencing (Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Manning, Eckhart Tolle and other mystics) to know that they are not making the distinction that you are talking about.
Additionally, why are protestant evangelicals even promoting the teachings and practices of Catholic mystics? Did the Reformation not happen? (no offense intended).
Also, in Lectio Divinia, at least how many/some practice, it is not just God's written Word that speaks to the practitioner through the process, it is actually new revelation that is given to the individual during the practice.
Amen. We need good old fashioned preaching and altar calls.
Where we live, it’s spiritually dry. I know God is working, at least in the spirit filled churches across the state, so I feel we are in for a revival. SOON LORD! We sure need one here. It’s been hard to witness, especially in college areas. But many Christian kids in our local college have started coming to our church and we have kids of all ethnic groups. There’s HOPE.
I used to be.
It ain't just marshmallows...It is toxic marshmallows!
At the root of it, these seeker sensitive folks have the wrong view of God, the Bible and of man.
They don't have a biblical view of God's sovereignty in salvation and they don't believe in the power of the Gospel to save.
They also, falsely, believe that the Church's primary reason for existing is evangelism. It is not. It exists for God's glory and for the edification of the saints.
The Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 14:24-25) said that on the chance that the unsaved are among us during our worship, we are to teach in a way that reveals their sin, convicts them of their sin, and leads them to repentance. In doing this, the unsaved will truly know that God is among us.
Seeker sensitive worship is the antithesis of Paul's direction and therfore unbiblical (not glorifying to God).
And...it is a seeker sensitive command not to be offensive (no teaching/preaching on sin, hell, doctrine, etc.). These things might turn away the crowd.
We all need to be praying for these folks and other ‘emergent church’ types.
"I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can."
(David Steindl-Rast, "Recollection of Thomas Merton's Last Days in the West" (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969)
At the core of the current contemplative mystical prayer and spirituality IS the New Age and Eastern religious practices of emptying the mind, centering down and finding god within.
Read Leonard Sweet's, popluar emergent and an alleged evangelical futurist, on line book Quantum Spirituality in which he talks about the cosmic christ and cosmic oneness. The New Agey and Eastern religious context is more than obvious.
You are right, Marysecretary.
But...we need to do that and more!
We need to contend for the faith (Jude), as commanded by Scripture, and do it in a way that reveals these folks as flase teacher and mark them so that they can be avoided (also commanded by Scripture).
For the sake of the flock and for God's glory.
YIKES!
Thanks for correcting me.
St. Paul said pray without ceasing. There are many forms of prayer. Discursive is one, but not the only one.
Some are called to other practice of prayer. It is always to be under proper guidance by a competent spiritual director.
Most or all Protestant churches shut down or rejected monastic and other orders and so lost this competency. Since then, in most cases, what replaced it was incompetent practitioners as you mention, or rejection of any other form of prayer than discursive.
Both are a loss.
By the way, it was largely due to Merton that I converted from buddhism to Christianity. IMHO, there are many who misunderstand his gift to our faith.
I'm not certain that the inference of this is correct.
My understanding is that: Merton died in Bangkok while on a trip approved by his abbot. His body was returned to Gethsemani where he is buried. He remained Catholic, though he did express a desire at one time to 'convert' to the Carthusian Order. :)
Amen!
I think that is where the dissatisfaction stems from. They reach a point where they begin to realize they need a Saviour and know that their relationship with Jesus is not what it should be. I think this a wonderful step in the right direction.
Exactly.
No revelation is not the same as insight.
Lectio is supposed to engender "new" personal insight, not new dogma.
Yep.
Unfortunately, she is also considered by many to be a Universalist.
Well...since Protestants form their doctrine on prayer from the Bible, and not church tradition, we disagree because the Bible holds to one form.
Some are called to other practice of prayer. It is always to be under proper guidance by a competent spiritual director.
Protestants don't have, or need, "spiritual directors".
Protestants don't pray by emptying their minds through breathing, body posture and relaxation techniques. We don't come to know God through "silence". Our revelation of God comes through the completed Scriptures.
Excellent post.
She made many similar statements.
In contrast, Jesus Christ said, "I am the way, and the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
“This “huge shift” ain’t good! “
You’re correct. Exit seeker-sensitive churches. Enter the emerging and emergant churches. Makes me want to scream. The lines are very blurred.
Nail on the Head. Gud Jub!
“They also, falsely, believe that the Church’s primary reason for existing is evangelism. It is not. It exists for God’s glory and for the edification of the saints.
Seeker sensitive worship is the antithesis of Paul’s direction and therfore unbiblical (not glorifying to God).”
Do you discursively pray without ceasing? What constant chatter that must be.
We don't come to know God through "silence".
"Be still and know that I am God."
Protestants don't pray by emptying their minds through breathing,..
Another common misconception; you are never "empty" or alone. What is in your mind or psyche if you empty it of you?
Protestants don't have, or need, "spiritual directors".
Surely wisdom and experience is valued by Protestants; or does each start anew? Dangerous and unnecessary.
Our revelation of God comes through the completed Scriptures.
This wouldn't be the "personal revelation" you criticized earlier would it?
Thanks for your reply.
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