Has your or is your church leaving the traditions that God told us to stand fast on, to follow after man’s purpose driven, seeker sensitive, church growth movement?
The way you can know if your church is following after this 21st century church movement is that they are using the new age words such as, the unchurched, unity, community, accountability, contemplative prayer, and vision casting or using Rick Warren’s books or programs. I would suggest you get online and do your own homework.
In these churches you will no longer be allowed to have bible studies, Sunday school, or Precept Classes as you know them, but you will be required to join a community group, where you can discuss God’s word and how you feel about it, and be accountable to the others in your group. For this church deals with feeling and needs, especially to the unchurched.
These churches are also a place of entertainment rather than a place of worship, they will have events and bands come in to lure the unchurched masses in. Also their pastors must be excellent speakers and be able to tell a good story to hold the attention of their audience. They’ve also changed the fellowship hall into a café. These churches no longer look like a church, but a place of entertainment. They don’t even refer to them as churches, but a campus.
Know you will also now be under the total authority of this new church leadership network, not God’s, and if you question the leadership, know they will ostracize you, saying that by not obeying them, you are not obeying God. You will be called a Pharisee, told not to take communion, and if you can’t get on board with us, you are serving Satan. They will use one sentence from the scriptures out of context to justify their behavior, when the actual meaning of the whole scripture may be just the opposite. This is why God tells us in His word, not to put our trust in any man.
As these churches preach that you are to love one another and serve your community, they themselves are showing zero love for the true bible following Christians, who usually are the pillars of the church, who built the church and have led people to Jesus Christ, growing the body of the church.
These churches run on a business format. Pastor-CEO, Elders-Executives, Group Leaders-Management, and the Congregation – You, their workers. You will know you have a CEO, when the pastor talks about vision casting, and that he will not pray with you, marry you, or speak at a loved one’s funeral, for he has his own life, his own family, and it’s not you. (Vision Casting, as it’s called, means making your idea of your business known. You share your vision with those responsible for seeing it through. Plan the best strategy for implementing your vision, be persistent and inspire others to buy into your vision.)
Please know that when a church requires you to submit to the authority of the leadership of a church and follow them blindly and cannot question their authority, this is no longer a church, but a business under the rule of the corporate pyramid.
It is time for those of us who are sitting in the pews to pray and ask GOD for discernment so that we will see any wrong path the church, it’s elders or pastors are taking and that you would be able to act in response to them to bring the church back to being GOD’s church based on His word, not man’s vision.
It is also time to pray for the pastor and elders that the scales would drop from their eyes and that they would see whether they are following the will of GOD for His church or the path of a man’s vision casting. Pray from the heart and with love for the prodigal church, that they will return to God’s church created for His saints and away from man’s church designed to entertain the unchurched.
