Comments on: Back from Mars (Part 2)

By: Carolyn Aleven

Carolyn Aleven — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:05:03 +0000

After reading the numerous comments back and forth over this subject I felt I had to respond. My husband and I have been members of a Church (twenty years) that started well. Gradually over the years the effects of Purpose Driven and Emergent church have become very obvious. The descripton given of Rob Bell’s group is typical of the Emergent thought. Our group is led by 12 godly, sincere, humble elders, however, they are still deceived by the Emergent teaching they receive from Willowcreek (Bill Hybels.) The Sunday teaching is full of Scripture but 80% is out of context.) The main teaching thrust is relationships, stewardship, and how much God loves us, something our catholic priest used to tell us almost every week. Our group has grown from 12 in 1980 something to over 3000 using the Purpose Driven church growth style. Sincerity, kindness, loving, and humble walks are not the ultimate test. The test is the handling of God’s word. We have stayed in this group because there is nowhere else to go. Almost all the churches in this area have fallen victim to this apostasy. No denomination is untouched. Sadness hardly describes how I feel about those who sit under these wolves, sincere or otherwise. So, we pray and keep on praying. Prayer for ourselves and for the elders we have come to love as much as our own family

By: Nita

Nita — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:05:37 +0000

I come from a Baptist tradition but somewhere along the way (inspired by Christ, I hope), I realized that we can’t always judge a book by its cover. A couple of years ago I began to feel the the Lord urging me to move to a small congregation where I could help to shepard new believers. I am well aware of the reputation of the emerging church, but I visited this one because a friend recommended it as a place where people were accepted warmly and the teaching was first-rate. I’m glad I did not allow the things I had heard “around” about Driscoll and others to color my opinion of the local church, which does not cede authority to people like him, anyway.

This place is what a church should be: The people who go there don’t dress up – many of them cannot afford to, and the ones who can don’t want to offend those who are poorer than them. From the first sermon, I knew this particular church – I don’t care what you call it – was God-ordained. The pastor spoke about God’s truth, and how knowing it and living it are two different things. He talked about how Christianity is not a religion, it is a personal relationship with God. We receive teaching on the trinity (think of the trinity as a piece of fruit, with God being the core, and Christ and the Holy Spirit the peel and the flesh) and other important Christian doctrines. Sometimes our pastor uses movie plots or everyday occurrences to illustrate biblical truths, but Christ illustrated his points using the vernacular of his time, too. Yup, our music is rock n’ roll, but the words are biblical. Our “Sunday School” classes meet throughout the week instead of on Sunday. Our baptisms are in a “tub” in front of the church and not back behind the choir. Prior to the baptism, our lead pastor visits with each person and asks them to describe publicly how they reached their decision. Then he asks them if they understand that it is a step of obedience to Christ that they are taking.

Certain things are done differently in our church, but I’m sure the Puritans in early America sang hymns differently than the first century believers in Rome. Would that make them heretics, too? Does the fact that we use grape juice instead of wine make us any less worthy to approach the communion table with joy? Our pastors give sermons on sexual purity before marriage, on adultery, on honoring God with our hearts and souls and minds. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but becuse it’s what God wants for us. I have never heard them call sin anything other than what it is. I’m sure many emerging and emergent churches do not preach the gospel but I can say with certainty that ours is not among them.

Some of the comments I have read here border on judgementalism. I understand the need to confront a fellow believer when we feel he has gone wrong, but it must be done only after prayerfully examining our own motivations, and in a spirit of genuine humility. There is always the danger, you see, of hoisting ourselves on our own petards.

By: committed to mars hill

committed to mars hill — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:41:24 +0000

the gospel being refered to here in the beginning comments is a gospel of a gross transaction: christ died, i get to go to heaven.
why must we view an act of violence as redemption? its not about the death, its about the resurrection and its about Christs unending love for us which draws us to him.
mars teaches a gospel of truth through love. its not fluffy and its not false. its real and it draws people into His kingdom.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:25:23 +0000

Karie
I get the impression you thought I was trying to defending WC, which I certainly didn’t think I was doing. I was just stating that they (not I) have publically denied any need to repent for their church model, contrary to what many in the blog world have claimed they have done. I then followed that up with the links to the articles I found that contradicted your statement and tried to summarize what appeared to me to be the main points of information they (WC, again not I) have gleaned from their survey and why they (based on their research) did not think there was anything to repent of with regard to their model. My point was if you are making a bold claim about something that Miriam will have firsthand knowledge of, (or anyone else who does a 30 second google search to verify) you need to make sure it’s true or you will lose all credibility. I’m also sure that you thought you were doing just that, but unfortunately the christian blogs and/or print media have severely let you down. Which I felt got back to Miriam’s point about the need for more due diligence on blogs that try to do christian discernment, so that people with firsthand knowledge don’t automatically discredit them due to information they know to be faulty/untrue.

I personally don’t see any wrong with Nathan’s reporting of his experience at Mars Hill as a data point, though it would probably be better to give the actual date he was there as well as the name of the message so that if someone wanted to review things for themselves they could
possbily download the message or maybe request a tape/CD of it at a later date. It appears it was probably the week of June 22, 2008 based on the speakers he mentioned.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:22:21 +0000

farewell.

By: Karie

Karie — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:18:28 +0000

CD-Host, WHAT?????

Jim-see MacAruthur’s article on pragmatism.

Dave-What? No one else here has employed their intellect and ability to seek truth. The question is how is the truth being defined, what is the standard of measure. Also, see MacArthur’s arcticle.

Very little reference to the Word of God or doctrine or theology has been discussed him. Outside sources that are based on man-made, man centered philosophies, world-views, and opionions have been referred to. I mentioned in an earlier comment, that Rob Bell holds to NT Wright’s view of scripture, no one addressed that. Rob Bell’s view of scripture will affect Everything! How has it turned out that Miriam has become the authority here? Address Rob Bell’s view of scripture. Willow Creek and Saddleback are 2 of the most high profile seeker churches, market driven churches and the birth places of all the pragmaticm spreading through the churches today, what do you think MacArthur is talking about in his article? I really am done with this debate, it has reached an impasse with some. Oh, one more thing, if WC “repented” and Bill Hybels says “they made a mistake” then obviously something went wrong, did not work, and repentence means they were going the wrong direction and need to turn around and do things God’s way, then there was failure, repentence means they admit to failure. I seriously doubt there are really mass conversions going on at WC, that is why they repented, false conversions, just numbers. I am done, I am weary, I am longing for the pure milk of the word, my poor little unsophicated, lack of intellect, closed mind in moving on to involvement in my church, two studies coming up, taught inductively, wow, I am surprised I know such a big word, and expositorily, 2 methods I guess the rest of you with your spiritually intellectual, blended methods will find, well, archaic and old-fashioned, and narrow.
It would serve us all well to close this and go the articles by John MacArthur and learn from a man of God who
genuinely with dignity and wisdom teaches the whole counsel of God. Look at the amount of comments here and the amount for those theological, doctrinal articles posted here at pulpit. Everyone wants to be a teacher and an authority, but no one wants to be a disciple a learner, and sit at the feet of godly, gifted men who speak the truth in boldness. So, farewell, I go to sit at the feet of Jesus and those who speak for him and learn.

By: dave

dave — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:34:22 +0000

karie,

1) i never called YOU a pharisee. i said, that’s exactly what the pharisees said about Jesus. clearly it was against miriam since she has served there for the past 15 years. just something to think about.

2) i never said anything in defense of willow creek. miriam’s intellect and ability to seek out truth has shown through on her own merits. i was defending miriam.

By: CD-Host

CD-Host — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:08:29 +0000

I’d like to respond to the very first comment from Nik Papageorgiou.

(quote) I must admit that I find the notion of a “post-modern” church a bit of a contradiction in terms. For example, the “founder” of Deconstructionalism, Jaques Derrida, was an atheist on the basis that religion needed to be absolute by definition, and, in his philosophy, there are no absolutes.

Can anyone enlighten me as how did they get from THAT to having “teachers” “teaching” on “creativity” (all of which are terms that necessitate an absolute basis)? (end quote)

Post-modernism is a theory of epistemology in and of itself it has no knowledge content. For someone who predated Derrida that addressed theology directly Jean-Fracois Lyotard. An absolute basis is not required for teaching. What is important is whether you are within or outside the meta-narrative. So for example if I were to invite John Lash to lecture at Grace about UFO religion you would have no question that Lash is an authority on UFO religions and is teaching you true information about how UFO religious doctrine and their theory. On the other hand you wouldn’t believe that his understanding of human history (in terms of human development being directed by aliens) is correct, within your historical narrative. You don’t have to accept Lash in an absolute sense to accept him in a relative sense.

So information can be true within a context and false in another context. A person can teach within a context and the listener understands that what they are teaching is relative to the context. And these teachings can be evaluated regardless of whether or not the teachings would be be valid within another context. That is they can reject universality without needing to reject the notion of teaching.

The point is this. A statement like:
“Joe’s restaurant is 30 miles north” requires a context. 30 miles north from what? And it is only within the context that we could discuss whether it is true or not. There is some point on the map that Joe’s restaurant is 30 miles north of.

And I think Miriam who seems like she knows Bell far better could address the creativity aspects.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:07:55 +0000

Karie,
I don’t know enough about Rob Bell to comment about him or Mars Hill, but I think in your last comment, you happened to just prove Miriam’s case the multiple data points are better than just one and that bias can play a role in what people see or hear. You stated, “Go search your empirical data and see that Willow Creek finally admits to failure in the seeker model.” I did as you suggested, I find that Willow Creek is as committed to reaching Seekers as every before with their seeker model. (See http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080701/megachurch-sets-record-straight-on-recalibrating.htm and http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2008/06/out_of_ur_repen.html)
The Reveal study does not suggest that the seeker model is flawed, it showed that it worked extremely well at reaching lost people and helping them make the decision to follow Christ as their Lord and Savior. It also did well at helping them after becoming a Christian to a certain point and then the church had a lesser effect on helping a Christian in their personal walk with Christ. Basically going to more church activities does not predict a person’s growing devotion to Christ. Where Willow is revamping their strategy is in stressing the need for daily personal devotional time in studying Scripture and prayer, instead of people relying solely on the weekend and midweek services and small group time for their weekly spiritual nourishment. Note also the Reveal survey was taken by both “seeker” and “non-seeker” churches all churches have shown similar results. I am guessing you probably saw the original article/blog or maybe the sound bite videos that didn’t provide the full context of the results.

By: Karie

Karie — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:28:07 +0000

I am not sorry Dave, WC is the birth place of the seeker movement and resposible for most of the other man-made, man centered ministries plaguing many churhes today. WC is responsible for the current crisis we see today that did not work (which they now admit) and has led to a kind of disenchantment that has fueled the Emergent/Emerging Church Movement. Willow Creek and Saddleback. So now, non-judgemental, non-critical, non-condescending Dave, I am a pharisee. Start showing your empirical data, unless all you got are apples and honey! Where is the word of God, I mentioned Galatians as a place to start to determine false teachers and to see the boldness of Paul in confronting Peter and the Galatians, even calling them foolish. Go search your empirical data and see that Willow Creek finally admits to failure in the seeker model. My comment was about WC, what good has come out of WC, I did not mean Miriam, although she seemed to be setting herself up as teacher/judge here and continued herself to be sort of arrogant. If she has been at WC for 15 years and in ministry there, she is not really in a quest for the truth about Rob Bell, IN MY OPINION. Bell’s materials ARE or have been used at WC, and probably it would be hard to admit, that that repository of truth WC could have baptized Bell to hastily.