There has been considerable fascination in the Christian culture with chasing fads and finding new novel concepts. Church leaders are the target of thousands of marketing campaigns, leadership models, avant garde Bible study curricula, trendy videos and vision casting techniques.
All of these mechanisms promise Church leaders growing congregations, health, vitality and a spiritual revolution.
When did God call pastors to resort to novelty? When did mechanics and methodology take over the Church of Christ? Does our current pre-occupation with revolutionary ideas and methodologies show that we trust the power of God's word or the power of human ingenuity?
Cults build big groups using mere methods. I want to know how to participate in building the Kingdom of God. Why should Saddleback, Mars Hill and Willowcreek be our models?
God did not call us to novelty, but to preaching the old, time honored, time proven message of the Gospel -- the message once for all entrusted to the saints by the apostles (Jude 1:3). God builds the house, not the ideas of men (Psalm 127:1).
2 comments:
Kind of funny to put Edgar Winter's name in front of your church.
About Edgar Winter from Wikipedia
Edgar is a Scientologist. He has appeared in at least seven issues of the Church of Scientology magazine Celebrity between 1995 and 2005, which list the Scientology courses that he has completed.[1]
Edgar also produced, arranged, and performed on the album Mission Earth (1986). This album's words and music were written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard supposedly left detailed instructions and audio tapes for the musicians and producers to follow when making the album.[2] Edgar described Mission Earth as "both a return to rock’s primal roots and yet highly experimental". Winter had glowing words for Hubbard when he wrote, "Ron's technical insight of the recording process was outstanding." Winter also described Hubbard's delineation of counter-rhythm in rock as something "which was nothing short of phenomenal, particularly inasmuch as it had then been entirely unexplored and only later heard in the African-based rhythms of Paul Simon's work, some five years after Ron’s analysis."[3]
Thanks for the insight, Rob. I had not known about the Hubbard influence.
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