Discovering the Church, the Culture, and the Truth
May 19th, 2009

Where are we leading?

I met with my mentors, some of the teachers in my life, today and one of them brought a few things to light in my life that I thought should be addressed in a public forum… since much of the road I’ve taken to get where I am was in public forum this just seemed right.

He said something like this: Micah, you lead people. But is your main concern leading them towards Christ or away from other things?

Let me break that down. As you well know, if you’re a faithful reader of this blog (hi mom), I’ve run numerous posts on what I would call impurities in the church, heresies, etc. The very self reflective question I have to ask myself is “am I so concerned with showing people how wrong this pastor or this author is that I forget that the much bigger goal is to show them how great Jesus is?”

I fear the answer… for the most part in the past few months has been… yes.

Does this mean that I’m not going to call people out or attempt to purify the DNA of the Body? No. But it does mean that I do believe relaying Christ’s love is much more important than relaying His disapproval. Blogs are especially not the ideal place to discuss the impurities in the Church. If that is my means of communicating the speck I find in my brother’s eye, then I am doing exactly what I criticize him for doing: publicly generalizing and criticizing the body of Christ and using Him as the excuse to do so.

Yes, there are problems that need to be addressed. Yes, churches and pastors need to be held accountable for the way they present Christ. But so do I. And until I make leading people towards Jesus central, rather than leading them away from the flaws of man, I am but an infant in my understanding of the gifts of prophesy and teaching.

April 15th, 2009

This is beginning to worry me…

I’d like to preface by saying I have no vendetta against Newspring. I know many Godly people who attend Newspring, I even know many Godly people who I respect, that work for the church. This is not an attack against the church or its leaders, this is a plea for awareness.

Criticism towards this church has become nationally abundant. From the tasteless and unbiblical approach of some pastors, to the more concerned and accountable correction of others. It is no secret that people have problems with the way this church operates.

It’s true that pastors of megachurches cannot listen to every protesting voice. I think it’s important to keep in mind that probably only 10% of the criticism aimed towards Newspring is legitimate or Biblically based. But how important is that 10%? If we examine the issues, I would plead that they are very important.

Like the lack of discernment when it comes to language. Both the pastor, and the youth pastor have made egregious discernment slip-ups when to comes to watching their words.

Entertainment value is another huge problem. This was my first ever disagreement with Newspring, and many other churches. I abandoned it after a while due to the fact that everyone seems to be doing it. But that makes no excuse. Recently, the band has played such songs as Highway to Hell and I Believe in a Thing Called Love, a song with apparent sexual references. This is not ok. Worship! It’s a worship band people! Their function in the church is to direct others worship of the Creator. The arguement is made, as it was with Highway to Hell, that the songs serve to highlight an idea of the sermon. Let scripture highlight your sermon.  As Hebrews 4:12 states, “the word of God is living and active,” it has plenty of power to penetrate the “soul and of spirit,” it doesn’t need a trashy song to help it.

The final straw came last night when, upon logging onto Newspring Internet pastor Nick Charalambous’ blog I saw him using 1 Corinthians 14 to back his claim that

The Apostle Paul, for one, is amazingly clear about how everything we do in gathered worship should be seeker sensitive.

How in any way is this applicable at all? 1 Corinthians 14 gives instruction on order of worship inside the church. This scripture would have to be severely twisted out of context before I could even begin to grasp how it could fit into anything remotely promoting seeker-sensitivity.

There needs to be some kind of accountability for the way Christ is being relayed to our community. I was hesitant to state these objections out loud in fear of becoming part of the fray, but a friend suggested I pose this question for others to comment on, and so I will; How far of a hole will Newspring leadership will dig before they look up or listen to some type of Biblical correction?

April 7th, 2009

Grace, mercy, and peace.

The greeting of every letter attributed to Paul holds the phrase “grace and peace” (Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, and so on…). But in 1 and 2 Timothy, a letter addressed to, and heavily referenced for, church leaders, Paul signs his greeting by wishing “grace, mercy, and peace” (1 Tim. 1:2, 2 Tim. 1:2).

Mercy is defined as:

compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.

I find it very interesting that mercy was added to the book about leadership. Paul later references the mercy shown to him by God (1 Tim. 1:13). Paul understands that teachers need mercy. They ar responsible for delivering and proclaiming the word of God. That doesn’t mean they always do a good job. Teachers carry a great amount of responsibility, so much that Paul recognizes their frequent need to not only be shown grace, the forgiveness of sin, but also mercy, the continued forbearance from the Father.

The dangerous side of this is that often teachers, preachers, pastors, forget that they are not Jesus. I wince every time I hear a pastor say, even ones I really like, “we are unapoligetic about what we do.” Those are big words. I think all teachers should be constantly growing in their knowledge of the truth, and to say one would be forever unapologetic would also mean they will forever believe as they do. It seems to stifle growth. Should a preacher be confident in what he preaches? Yes. But often I feel pastors communicate they have already achieved the full knowledge of Christ. Let’s be confident in our proclaiming the gospel of Christ, not cocky in our approach to teaching. We are in constant need of mercy.














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