Emergent Monday - How To Hijack A Church

Chuck Smith
June 25, 1927 – October 3, 2013

Say what you will about Calvary Chapel, and I'm sure there's enough criticism for any institution that involves sinful mankind, but when have you ever seen a church adopt a preaching style that encopasses the bible cover to cover, chapter by chapter, verse by verse? It's a beautiful, God worshiping, Holy Spirit praising thing when a church admits that it's God that sets the agenda and not the pastor.

I personally believe that Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith put far too much emphasis on pretribulation but that's just me. I love his emphasis and his love for the principle of sola scriptura. Yes, Calvary Chapel depended heavily on contemporary music, but Chuck always made room for good ol' fashion, God worshiping hymns.

Calvary Chapel is near to my heart mostly because it's the church of choice for my wife who is nearer and dearer to my heart, and if we were not already involved in a wonderful God praising small church we would be attending a Calvary Chapel... that is until this whole thing started.

I think what caused it all was that Calvary Chapel got unfortunately huge... very huge. I say unfortunately because I believe that small churches are the best churches. Small churches attract small congregations and tend to stick by their beliefs. Meanwhile huge churches attract huge sums of money along with the people needed to carry it in the door, and that can be addictive. Big congregations need more staff, and big beautiful buildings, and before you know it you're hiring the cast of a broadway musical for your "worship" team.

Calvary Chapel got big - tv stations, radio stations, big beautiful buildings, and not to mention the intellectual property (i.e. books, sermon tapes, etc) which handled properly is a fantastic source of income. Not long after Chuck died of complications from cancer a power struggle broke out for leadership of Calvary Chapel. There were recriminations, accusations and lawsuits, and in the end Brian Brodersen, Chuck's son-in-law ended up at the top of the smoldering heap and all that money.

Random Bits

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

If designers can deny the right to serve someone because of that person's beliefs, why can't Christians?

I'm from Buffalo, and while winning isn't big in Buffalo, football is huge. What can I say? We love our Bills. We love our Broncos here in Denver too, and an early game here in the Mountain time zone means that kickoff occurs in the middle of an awfully good sermon. I just mention this to show you what happens in Dallas on a Sunday

Doing liturgical this year? Triablogue has a massive list of Christmas resources for 2016

The difference between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism is the distance between heaven and hell.

An arsonist set fire to a pro-life ministry in Albuquerque

Tullian Tchividjian, the Rev. Billy Graham's grandson who lost his church and wife last summer to an adultery scandal with a new church and a new wife.

Bloomington IN renames Good Friday to "Spring Holiday" There's no truth to the rumor that they renamed Christmas to "Winter Holiday" or "That day with the Tree" but don't put it past them

WWUTT Wednesday - Studying Revelation

The Book of Revelation is actually the very first book of the bible I ever read. This was back in the days of the "Late Great Planet Earth" craze when it seemed like everyone was predicting the end of the earth by the year 1988. Exactly five years after the anticipated start date of the Apocalypse I had the honor of studying Genesis (and Ruth) under a Rabbi. 

The name of that class was "The Bible as Literature" because you can't teach "The Bible as God's Word" in a publicly funded University, but you can call it Literature and still teach it as God's word. Personally I suggest everyone take a good long hard study of Genesis (and Ruth) under a Rabbi because that will give you a foundation of Jewish law, and when you understand Jewish law a lot of things in the bible start to make a lot of sense.

For example - ever notice that whenever the ancient Israelites built an altar at a place they would prominently name it? that Adam's first job was to name the animals? that God's acts during creation included naming things like day, night, dark, etc? There is power in naming, it's practically (at the risk of sounding Emergent) Name It and Claim It. Once you understand that there's real power in naming, that white rock we receive in Revelation with our new name on it suddenly becomes a very Big Deal.

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Church decline is a concern we see all the time, but at the same time some churches are growing. Rick Warren says that the way to fight church decline is to grow the church with more staff, more services, more facilities, more events - a "if you build it, they will come" kind of thing. To me this sounds kind of backwards, much like "Drive defensively - the best defence is a good offence" So a group actually studied churches in decline and compared them with churches that are growing and it turns out that all the bandages that Mr. Warren offers don't even make the list

A survey that was conducted which found that difference between growing and declining churches boils down to doctrine, and the biblical truth that Jesus builds the Church shines brightly here. The researchers found that growing the growing church believes the bible and reads the bible while declining churches show much less faith in the word of God. One finding truly disturbed me: 93% of clergy and 83% of worshippers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb”. This compared with 67% of worshippers and 56% of clergy from declining churches. How can a church not believe in the resurrection and still call themselves Christian?

Shawn "God Cares About Your Finances" Bolz, NAR False Prophet and friend of disgraceful Todd Bentley, has a book out designed to steer your children away from biblical Christianity and into the realms of mysticism and contemplative prayer.

Spurgeon Thursday - One For Pastor Paratus