Andy stanley churches12/23/2023 Noting that the pastor referred to himself as a shepherd, the judge said, “The shepherd ought to protect his flock.” As though some judge has any idea what that means. And the government said, “You can’t do that.” In fact, when he was released the judge took some shots at him verbally. And his crime, his crime was opening the doors of his church so his people could meet together. He’s just been released pending a trial in May. You know, there was a pastor in Alberta, Canada by the name of James Coats. We’ll just do all the other things that we do. Only now, because he’s in Los Angeles County, he’s able to say, well it’s really not that important. And he argues in his book that everything else the church does is driven, motivated, compelled forward, energized, strengthened, empowered by worship. And right in the middle is the purpose of worship. In fact, he has a nifty little diagram in the shape of a diamond with each of those four purposes. He does talk about the five purposes of the church. Because I’ve read his book, The Purpose Driven Church. Well, let me tell you, Rick Warren is being a little disingenuous. You take one circle out we’ve still got four circles. His 20,000-member church, Saddleback Church, he tells us is not built on one purpose but on five. So, if you take worship away, you’ve got nothing.” He says, “They’re in a hurry to get back to worship because that’s all they’ve got.” But if that’s what Andy Stanley thinks is a substitute for the people of God meeting together and following the commands of our Lord then he and I are on very different pages.Īlong those same lines, Rick Warren, who pastors Saddleback Church in southern California, said that COVID 19 has revealed what he called a “fundamental weakness in the church.” He said, “Most churches see worship as their sole purpose. I’ll all for blood drives and I think the Red Cross is good important organization. He says that “It sounds like bragging,” but his church that hasn’t met for nine months, he says, “has done more to advance the cause of Christ during this pandemic than those churches that have been opened.” When pressed for an example of how his church has advanced the cause, he points to the fact that “his church hosted the largest Red Cross blood drive in Atlanta history.” His words carry a lot weight and they need to be answered. Well, let me speak about this because Andy Stanley has a lot of influence. And instead of focusing on what we can’t do, we should have been 100% focused on what we can do.” I don’t challenge mega-church pastors in public very often, but today we need to talk.Įarlier this month in an interview, Andy Stanley, who is the pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, made the statement that he is, “Embarrassed by churches that engaged in spitting matches with state and local governments over COVID 19 lockdown restrictions.” He went on to say that “too many churches abandoned the mission for the sake of the model.” In fact, he said, “The thing that’s been concerning to me about the local church is how quickly so many local churches felt like – we’ve got to get back in our buildings shoulder to shoulder doing what we’ve always done.” He calls that “the exact wrong approach.” He says, “We have the opportunity of a lifetime to do new things, try new things, experiment with new things because we couldn’t do the old things.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |