I love how the ODMs site the martyrs in closed countries, but fail to see to BOOM taking place all over the world in the church. 600,000 memeber churches in Korea, 130,000 member churches in South America… estimated 1 million in underground church in China that are startegicllly relocating themselves to the middle east to reproduce. Oh yeah… and China is FULL of martyrs, but they find some way to pass on the gospel.

But, somehow we have to point out that not all of the 3,000 at pentacost were true converts… hell, even Peter can’t get his doctrine right apparently. The fact is, numbers DO MATTER. How you get those numbers matters as well. The issue is not pure numbers… the question is “what are you doing with the people that God has placed in YOUR neighborhood, work and family”? If you are actuall living out the great commission and the great commandment… YOU WILL GROW!!

yep…there’s that pesky “contextualization”.

Evil emergentism.

PD was clearly not a fit for the culture of the church. It’s implementation was actually detrimental

.

So knowing the culture is important when trying to disciple and evangelize! Who know?

I’m not a big fan of PD because it’s too cookie cutter.
It’s reflective of a particular suburban middle class value system of religion. It just can’t possibly work for all.

The pastor…he was a whole ‘nother story.

If you have poor aim, you need as big a target as you can to make a direct hit. Hence, the beautiful target that a megachurch makes, for it is a very big church and is frequently targeted by those with bad “aim.”

(The dog-toupee photo is really…something.)

A young woman in our church had served in missions down in the Dominican and built many relationships during her time. With the recent hurricane many of those relationships have been sending her reports and updates. This is an excerpt from one such report.

-The church in an old theater in downtown Barahona that is serving 550 people are amazing. They are super organized and you can tell they had a disaster plan and were using it. It was working very well. The church has been raising funds to build a new building. When this disaster struck, without a blink of an eye, they made the decision to use the money they collected for the new building to buy the supplies they needed to help these people in need. This week, the building owner notified them that he had sold the building and they would need to be leaving the facility in the next few months. That is sad but it shows the compassion this church has.

I can’t think of a better way to present the Gospel message.

Sometimes we fail to recognize that the 1000s “swept into the kingdom” on the day of Pentecost were not all genuine converts.

Not trying to be antagonistic either but why does the inerrant word of God say and “thousands were added to their number” if that wasn’t the case.

You’ve set up a false dichotomy here,

It’s the issue of counterfeit growth simply due to marketing techniques, appealing to the flesh (catchy series names, lighting, etc), the diluting of the truth that is at issue.

Professional marketing, sermon series linked to ‘catchy’ themes, lighting, etc need not lead to “counterfeit growth”, whatever that is.

How many of Rick Warren’t sermons have you listened to, and how many small group Bible Studies have you attended at Saddleback? How many Willow Creek services have you attended, and how many of their small groups have you visited to make this determination?