The News Beats

The upcoming Radicalis conference scheduled to take place at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, February 9-12, will include speakers Rick Warren, his ministry team, and what is shaping up to be a line-up of, well, the usual suspects for apostasy.  One headliner is Brad Powell, Senior Pastor, Northridge Church.  Powell is slated to discuss his process of successfully transitioning congregations “from static to dynamic,” and to go from “irrelevance to relevance.”¹  It is important to understand that in the nomenclature of compromise the term irrelevance means small, but faithful congregation; and the term relevance means applying marketing schemes to attract more dues-paying customers by employing sensual lures in the areas of church lighting, music, and entertainment.

For a glimpse of the marketing program Powell will be promoting at Radicalis, a look back to his marketing ideas from 2007, as originally covered here at TheNewsBeats.com, will be insightful:

Brad Powell: Holy Spirit Hot Sauce, or Marketing Genie in a bottle?

December 30th, 2006 by David Dansker

Billed as the “Change Without Compromise 2007” conference, Brad Powell, Senior Pastor of Northridge Church, MI, is marketing his church transition workshops by comparing Church fervency to a bottle of hot sauce. Referencing Revelation 3:15-16, Powell contends the comparison “isn’t that far off,” and he claims that by purchasing his hot ideas your church can “move from static to dynamic, from cultural irrelevance to relevance, and from ineffective to effective.” Of course, “20% growth annually” might also be inside the bottle too. Workshops include Marketing and Communications (or, “What’s On Your Label?”); Volunteers (how to develop and maintain them); and Programming with a Purpose. “Your services can be ‘all killer, no filler’! Experience the process… from the pastor’s series thoughts… to the final walk-out music. Hands-on training that’ll rock your programming world” (workshop, deatails).

Upon successful completion of the Powell transition, it sounds like a pastor can process attendees through church services with all the efficiency and thrills of a major theme park ride. The cost for the conference and workshops is $179. While we didn’t see a workshop on holding them upside down long enough to shake the money out, it seems safe to deduce that the mechanism is built into the package.

The-if you will excuse the phrase-selling points for this tabasco-talk are Powell’s own numbers: 12,700 people for weekend services, and 2,100 “decisions for Christ” last year alone. When considering these, and Powell’s merchandising campaign, two things come to mind. One is 2Peter 2:3: “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” The other thing is that Pilate got probably as many “decisions for Christ” in a single day; they decided to crucify him.

Notes:

^1. Radicalis,  “Leading Through Change with Pastor Brad Powell,” Pastors.com. http://www.pastors.com/groups/pd_conferences/pages/individual-tracks.aspx.  (accessed January 6, 2010)

Some of the scariest cult practices around the world actually contain Christian themes.  In San Fernando, Philippines, upwards of two dozen people have themselves nailed to cross on Good Friday to emulate the crucifixion of Christ.  Many more undergo self-flagellation where “scores of men pound their bleeding bare backs with bamboo sticks dangling from ropes in a flagellation rite meant to atone for sins.”¹ As atrocious and repulsive as these displays are, most in mainstream Protestantism would attribute these rituals to ignorant penitents of the Roman Catholic variety, and in far away jungles.  Welcome to the jungle.

The misapplication of Christ’s life as an example for Christian living has become a popular topic for leaders in large Protestant churches in America, and the results could get just as ugly. According to mega-church pastor Rick Warren, people should look back on Jesus life leading up to the crucifixion and emulate it to perfect good leadership skills. While at first it sounds like a pious exercise promising great benefits to perspective leaders,  even the great mega-leader himself exhibits the pitfalls of trying follow Jesus after His life in the flesh.  In one lesson Warren instructs: “You’ve got to learn not to care about the opinions of others.”²  Real leaders won’t “pay attention to those who cheer you or jeer you.”³    After all, leaders need to be like Jesus who “lived for an audience of One” in order to please their heavenly Father.⁴   It almost sounds like Warren is championing the priesthood of believers, and extolling the individuals’ relationship with God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit.  Not so fast.

Warren is encouraging leadership, but not without the bounds of his own holy order, or outside of his organizational hierarchy.  Shortly after encouraging leaders to remain undeterred by either applause or rejection, he withdraws Christian liberty altogether.  “If God gives you a vision for your ministry,” Warren begins his about face, “he’s going to bring other people with the same idea together with you.  If nobody agrees on your idea, guess what?  It’s not from God.”⁵  Really? How do you know that you’re not just on a bad run of those ‘jeers’ you’re not supposed to pay attention to?  If you sense the Holy Spirit telling you to move, should you decline on Warren’s technicality of having at least one human witness to vouch for God’s credibility?

Aside from this being absurd, this denies the fact that there are ministry opportunities a saint will encounter that will be used to demonstrate God’s awesome power and His sufficiency; to both strengthen the individual believer, and glorify His name.

Of course, Warren is being deceptively duplicitous.  He is pretending to hold out some vaunted mantle of leadership while actually enticing the simple into leg irons for subservience to the Purpose Driven holy order.  That order is the Purpose Driven Church comprised of cloisters of small interdependent groups which are closely supervised and directed by the real leadership at the top.

In an effort to support the claim for his small group paradigm by pointing to the disciples, Warren claims that “Jesus modeled this kind of ministry.  He never did ministry alone.” This outright falsehood is parleyed in an attempt to suggest that the Lord instituted the collectivist’s “collaboration” of working in “a small group,”⁶ outside of which no Christian service was legitimate, and that Jesus was incompetent and utterly dependent upon His small group to redeem mankind.

There is a strong resemblance between Warren the collectivist, and a more famous one spoken of by historian Clinton Rossiter in 1960:

He was, on any large view, a collectivist, a thinker who had a thoroughly social view of the claim to personal liberty, who obliterated ruthlessly the distinction between public and private man, … and who insisted that the behavior of any individual was determined almost wholly by his membership in a class.⁷

This collectivist and avowed atheist, who Warren has molded his soviet-style control groups after, was none other than Karl Marx. Warren’s ruthless obliteration of aging or small congregations by sending PDL-trained infiltrators in among the sheep to take over church buildings is well documented.  His propagation of the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which establishes a ruling clergy over an ignorant laity, has reestablished the class system the Protestant Reformation once freed Christians from. Next stop, Rome.

Notes:

^1. Associated Press, “Philippine devotees nailed to the cross in Good Friday rites,” International Herald Tribune, March 21, 2008. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/21/news/Philippines-Crucifixions.php

^{2 - 6.} Rick Warren, “The Seven Foundations of Jesus’ Leadership,” Christian Post, April 23, 2008.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080423/32075_The_Seven_Foundations_of_Jesus%92_Leadership.htm

^7. Clinton Rossiter, “Marxism: The View from America” (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), 119.

In Rick Warren’s article “Six Physical Factors That Affect Your Worship Service,” which appeared in The Christian Post, Warren attributes the success of worship to comfortable and aesthetic facilities. Drawing an analogy between stadiums and sanctuaries, Warren contends that pews are the cultural equivalent to the “cheap bleacher section at ball games.”¹ He advises pastors to imitate those “box seats” that “are prized at stadiums.”² It seems that with pews, pastors also run the risk of making people uncomfortable with seating that is too close together. “Personal Space is highly valued in our society,” Warren observes.³

Of course, the tried and true church goers may not know they aren’t up to society’s standard of being uncomfortable; and this is why Warren’s advise emphasizes duplicity, and begins with a supposition: “If you can get away [with] replacing the pews, I’d advise it.”⁴ If pastors can, then the fun can really start.

Once a pastor can replace the pews with movable chairs, he can begin to exercise control over the minds of the worshipers by milieu manipulation and group dynamics. The first thing to eliminate is the skeptical, or discriminating, mind. This can be accomplished by placing the chairs so that “people can see some of each other’s faces.”⁵ This way a pastor who has adopted the PDL sermons, replete with personal anecdotes and humorous stories, can work these to his advantage. When he can get people to see other people laughing, he can cause them to suspend their judgment of his anemic sermon out of respect for the happy occasion. This is the use of group dynamics in a controlled environment, and the fun is just starting.

As this new church is in the “planting” stage,⁶ it is important to give appearance of success. Warren instructs pastors to “always set up less chairs than you need. It’s encouraging to your people when additional chairs must be brought in as people arrive.”⁷ There is one more indispensable part of this musical chair deception if it is to be a Warren success: sound.

Invest in the best sound system you can afford. If you’re trying to cut costs, do it in some other area. Don’t skimp here. Saddleback grew for 15 years without our own building, but we’ve always had a state-of-the-art sound system.⁸

Could this mean taking out a second mortgage? Maybe they could sell those pews to a local stadium for cheap seats. Hey, it’s not about you; and it doesn’t seem to be about Him either. As can be seen by Warren’s choice of scripture for authorizing this program of pleasure seeker deception, It’s about pleasing society. To justify making facilities the heart of worship, Warren misapplies Titus 2:10, taking the verse completely out of context. This is the context:

In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; (Tit 2:7-13)

This scripture is about the adornment which is manifested in the conversation, behavior, and the life of a saint; not in the facade of a building. Interestingly, it is also about sincerity, and not covertly setting something aside (purloining), and about fidelity, or good faith. Sound is important, but it is sound speech, or teaching that does not deviate from truth.

Notes:

1 - ⁸. Rick Warren, “Six Physical Factors That Affect Your Worship Service, “The Christian Post, March 08, 2007.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070308/26208_2_Six_Physical_Factors_That_Affect_Your_Worship_Service.htm

4. (emphasis addeded)

Tom Bartlett arrived at Celebration Church in 2004. Presumably, he didn’t just drop through the roof, but went through some sort of hiring process; possibly to replace a retiring pastor. Today, there are some who think the roof might as well have caved in. Bartlett is taking credit for riving a dwindling congregation of 40 and raising the number up wards to 300 congregants,[i]but it hasn’t been so much about growth as it has been about replacement.

One of the first people to be replaced was Joe Owings, a retired pastor. Owings and others left the church because the new pastor implemented Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church method for church growth. “It was during that time we began to get uncomfortable with the music. The emphasis seemed to be more on younger people and a new generation, and we just felt like we did not fit in.”[ii]So, Owings and others were promptly ‘out-fitted’ with a new church of the great outdoors. Bartlett defends his reliance on contemporary music as the draw for these new, younger congregants because they are the people he is trying to reach, “and we see them leaving the church in droves.”[iii] Maybe they’re being enticed back in by the sound of contemporary music, but there is reason, and authority, to question the integrity of the sort of faith that depends on it:

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (1Co 2:4-5)

Because the wisdom of man is no match for the spiritual warfare unleashed on the minds of mortals who would repent and turn towards God, Paul was adamant that our faith be sourced in the power of God. This is accomplished by preaching in the power of the Spirit. Your faith should not stand with enticing sounds from man’s guitars either, but the seductive power of music is often used in religions that depend on sensuality for producing initiates and controlling them. Mix in a heavy diet of “psychological techniques,”[iv]or man’s wisdom, for behavior modification in place of doctrine, and they’ll never know what hit them.

While it is tragic to consider hundreds being deluded into believing they are experiencing saving grace, it is made possible by what may turn out to be the largest landgrab since the Catholic church ruled the kingdoms of Europe. PDL churches are not build-new churches, they are takeovers.

What happens to an original congregation, a congregation that was probably made to feel guilty for lower attendance, guilty for not utilizing their resource to reach the community, guilty for not taking out a second mortgage to upgrade the sound system and lighting, guilty for expecting a shepherd in their senior years in the church they sacrificed to build; what happens to them? “Well,” says their pastor Bartlett, “that’s why there’s different churches for different folks.”[v] [] And, no, we’re not exaggerating about the guilt tripping tactics that are used to get members to leverage themselves until they’re ripe for a corporate-style, hostile takeover. Here it is from his eminence, Rick Warren:

“Every church has to make the decision…. Is it going to live for itself, or is it going to live for the world that Jesus died for?”[vi]

The Church of Jesus Christ lives for, which means serves, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The doctrine of the Gospel is preached so that men may be saved out of the world they serve, and born into the Kingdom to serve the King of Kings.

Warren’s gospel, which is not the gospel, is a gospel of works wherein you must serve the world in his volunteer community works programs, and give up your church property to become one of his local offices. He has given up the cross for his acrostics (i.e. his service projects: P.E.A.C.E., C.H.U.R.C.H., S.H.A.P.E., S.T.O.P., S.L.O.W, etc.), and he means to have eminent domain.

Endnotes:

---

 

[i] Martin Bashir and Deborah Apton, “Rick Warren and Purpose-Driven Strife”:

Pastor’s Unconventional Approach Inspires Some, Alienates Others,

ABC News Nightline. March 7, 2007

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2914953&page=1

 

[ii] Bashir and Apton, “Rick Warren and Purpose-Driven Strife” http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2914953&page=2

 

[iii] Ibid.

 

[iv] Ibid. 3.

 

[v] Ibid. 2.

 

[vi] Ibid. 4. Owings describes content, PDL sermons.

Dennis Rainey, of Family Life Today, was a speaker at Saddleback’s Global Summit on Aids where pro-abortionist Senator Barack Obama also spoke and caused outrage among many on looking Christians. In his report on the summit, Rainey defended the appropriateness of Obama’s addressing the church audience on grounds that he didn’t speak from the pulpit, or about abortion, but he spoke about AIDS. Nevertheless, Rick Warren shared the platform with him, endorsing and giving him encouragement. How far this encouragement will go towards emboldening Obama to hold fast to his position on murdering babies, seeing that large Christian audiences will welcome him with open arms, we do not know. We also don’t know how many extra murders will be attributed to this surge forward in his conceits that Obama received from Saddleback. We do know that sucking the brains out of babies and collapsing their skulls is murder, and that there will always be those who “not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (from Rom 1:32). It doesn’t bother Rainey. “I do not have a problem,” Rainey reports, “that Senator Obama spoke at the conference.”1 That’s because Rainey is willing to trade all those innocent lives for a part in Warren’s new ‘open mic’ evangelism of letting the unsaved preach their social gospel to the church. “If Obama isn’t a believer,” Rainey reasons, “what better place to be … perhaps bridges will be built to him that will reach him for Christ.”2 That “perhaps” is about as thin as water, and the innocent blood will be running a lot thicker to float it.