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Why, Pastor, Why? Part II
November 6, 2007
Dear Former Pastor of Mine,
On July 2nd of this year, you issued a letter addressed to all “ministry leader(s).” If I were to give your letter a title, I would call it “Belong Believe Behave.”
Here is the passage from your letter that is the crux of my letter to you:
“I continue to have a passion for helping new and pre-Christians connect at (your church). This is certainly Christ’s passion as well. In this culture, I am convinced that we need to allow people investigating faith to first belong…then believe…then behave. Too often in Christian circles, we mix this order up. We compel people to first behave…then believe…then belong. In order to be a safe place for pre-Christians to experience the grace of Christ, we are trying to be more intentional in how we connect these individuals with Sunday School classes, small groups, and other ministry areas where they can belong.” (Author’s note: italics were my former pastor’s and underlining is mine.)
While I agree that Christians have historically gotten these three steps out of order, I would say that you have them out of order as well (may I compliment you in that they appear to be in perfect Earl Creps-Rick Warren-Bill Hybels-Robert Schuler order?). The Biblical sequence should be BELIEVE-Belong-behave.
Some definitions of your terms would be helpful in shedding some light why we have this basic disagreement:
- Pre-Christian = sinner = someone headed for an eternity in Hell unless they accept the gift of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, and His payment for our sins on the Cross.
- Connect = establishing a relationship between the sinner and the church without confronting them about their sin because that would make them feel like they don’t belong.
- Investigating faith = the state of being a sinner who has not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.
- Belong = a sinner who feels comfortable at your church.
- Believe = the condition of acknowledging one’s sin and need for a savior from that sin through God’s Son Jesus Christ.
- Behave = the condition of a church attendee who conforms to either the Biblical standards for Christian behavior or church standards for church attendance or both.
So, with your sequence, Pastor, what it appears that you are proposing is that your church ministry leaders do whatever is required to make sinners feel comfortable attending your church. How exactly does a Christian make a sinner feel comfortable in church? Let’s start with you. Do you intend to cease preaching about sin? If I were a sinner attending your church, and you preached on sin—whether you were addressing Christians in your church or sinners like me—I would feel like I didn’t belong unless I did something about my sin.
Unlike you, I work with some rather good sinners every day. At least eight hours per day, five days a week. They like to get drunk, use profanity and take God’s name in vain, visit restaurants with scantily clad women, attend strip clubs, believe in Evolution, don’t ever open a Bible, and watch movies with gratuitous nudity and violence. Are you asking me, as a ministry leader, to offer some or all of these things in my small group or Sunday school class so that they feel like they belong [please don’t act shocked here; there is an emerging church pastor in St. Louis that holds church in a bar during business hours—and he’s a Baptist]? And given your academic training, how on Earth can you follow the illogical trail that a sinner made comfortable in your church would ever have an incentive to believe, let alone behave? If I already belong, why would I need to believe? In order to believe, I have to address my sin. The person confronting me about my sin would make me feel like I don’t belong. You have a self-defeating process. Seems like steps-out-of-order doesn’t it?
And what does “culture” have to do with anything? Sinners are still the same as they have always been. They sin. And they like their sin (Hebrews 11:25) until the consequences come to roost. And when they go searching for an answer to their consequential unhappiness and emptiness, there had better be someone there to convince them of their need for a Savior or they will be just like the dog Peter refers to in his epistle that “is turned to his own vomit again.” Pastor, it seems you have embraced change from preaching the simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified to the complex, wind blown gospel of the emerging church. That same church referred to as the “whore” in the final book of the Bible. WHY are you doing this? Are you deceived or do you know exactly what you are doing? If the former, I fear for your salvation and that of your flock. If the latter, God is against you and you will be judged as He judged the whoredoms of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament.
And if you don’t agree with the Rick Warrens and Bill Hybelses and Earl Crepses of the world, then why would you send me the above letter? You use language straight from their books! And why would you have your church join the Willow Creek Association (Bill Hybel’s Big Club on the Broad Road to Destruction) recently as was reported to me (it was also reported to me that your church is now listed on the Willow Creek web site—a validation of the report)? Why would you quote Bill Hybels from the pulpit? Why would you invite Earl Creps to speak at your church?
You are playing with fire, “brother.” And you will be burnt. I pray that it is not eternal Hell fire. I ask you to repent of this wickedness before God calls you on His carpet. And I pray that you do this before you drag a couple thousand sheep into Judgment with you.
With Love For You as a Fellow Human Being,
Brother Mike
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