Friends,

I only have time for a short post on this, so I need to get straight to the point. Read on only if you have courage as I am a bit testy this morning. I know we have hashed and re-hashed this issue over Granger, but I have a different perspective to lend: that of the ‘pastor.’

I haven’t followed the ‘Granger is Full of Heretics’ story too closely, and I am relatively new to the ways in which certain ADM (’Actual Damnation Ministries’) work, so I’ll need just a bit of help here.

First, SOL links to this story with this title: Who’s to Blame for the Granger Debacle? The author of Slice writes:

When over half of your congregation doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation, who is to blame? When nearly that same amount doesn’t believe the Bible is authoritative, where does the fault lie? Is it the fault of the pastor? The elder board? The small group leaders? The architects of the building? The local utilities? The house band?

Second, this is actually a link back to a blog I am starting to dislike more and more, despite the author’s claim to not be an ODM, (My) Truth Matters. The author writes:

Who is the shepherd of the local church? Who is responsible to “feed and guard the sheep”? Listen to how Mark Beeson takes no responsibility and blames the people and then describes the “changes” that will be made.

Third, here’s where it gets to the point. So, Granger church (of which I know very, very little) does a little survey and concludes that there are some things wrong or at least concludes some things that need to be addressed. Then they start addressing these issues, but only after making the results of the survey public knowledge, and thereby setting up the ADM’s for at least three days worth of posts and ’see I told you so’s’. So, if I understand this correctly, and follow the logic and work habits of the ADM’s: 1. Criticize a church with whose theology and practice you disagree. 2. Make certain you publish all their flaws publicly for all to read.  (3. Said church does a survey which concludes there are, yes, problems, that need to be addressed. [Would that more churches had such courage. Would that more ADM's had such courage.] ) 4. Publish new articles criticizing the Church for agreeing with what you were saying. 5. Publish more articles that go out of their way to assign blame. Continually harp on the ‘pastor’ or ‘leadership’ of said church in an effort to prove oneself right and to show massive prophetic powers to constituents and contributors. 6. Start the whole process over again when said church makes changes that you don’t think ‘go far enough.’

Fourth, the blame game…hmmm…where I have heard that before? Oh, yes: “Was it you?…It was the woman….It was the serpent…It was…uh…it was the, uh…Nixon…Clinton…” At some point the blame becomes pointless. If you are an ADM/ODM please tell all of us why you give a damn (sorry) who is to blame for this? WE ARE SINNERS! We will do the wrong thing and make wrong choices. The issue here is not that they found something wrong, but that they had to courage to admit it in the first place. I could survey the entire world and find that 98% people don’t believe Jesus is exclusively the way to salvation. Granger found the problem…why do you care who is to blame? Have you nothing better to do with your pathetic dreary graceless blogs? If they have found the problem, if they are working at fixing it, why do you care? How does what they do affect your comfortable lives behind keyboards and microphones?

Fifth, the gist here is about the role of the preacher in the church. One the one hand, I want to respond, “You think it is the job of the preacher because you have a terrible misunderstanding of the role of the preacher/evangelist/pastor.” ”Our culture tells us a great deal about ‘the minister,’ and much of what it says is inaccurate. It has presented an image of how he should look, what his job is, how he is to act, what he is supposed to in times of illness and death, upon whom he is supposed to call and how often and for what occasions, and even what his family should be like. ‘The ministry’–that vocation in which one is overwhelmed with meetings and a myriad of tasks, torn by conflicting expectations, molded by centuries-old traditions of the pastor-priest–seems impossible to increasing numbers of candidates who sincerely yearn to serve God.” (Joe Ellis, The Church on Purpose, 111 (Standard Publishing, 1982)

You want to know why we are ‘losing the battle for America’? It’s because the people who sit in the pews and at their computer work-stations blogging don’t have any idea what is going on in the life of the typical American pastor and because people like ADM/ODM’s scare the hell into young people who want to go into ministry so they can PREACH. But thanks to a culture of feeders, preachers cannot focus on what matters (ministry of the Word and prayer, Acts 6) because we have to all sort of other stupid things like go to meetings, visit this person or that, hand all the admin…blah…blah…blah…It is lazy parishioners…lazy Christians…people who won’t carry one another’s burdens, people who won’t feed one another, people who won’t care for one another…that are to blame. It’s just too easy to blame the man or woman upfront isn’t it? Takes all the burden off of you, right?

On the other hand, I want to say, “Those who can, preach; those who cannot criticize or blog.”

If you sense a bit of anger here, please do. If you are offended by my use of the word ‘damn’ or ‘hell’, tough. I’m tired of these people who have nothing better to do but sit around and assign blame. I’ll tell you what: I’ll take the blame for Granger having the problems they do. Maybe now the AMD’s will shut up about it.

jerry

PS-”To this day the Biblical role of the church member has not been substantially reclaimed. Christians, by and large, do not demonstrate a clear awareness of the demand for serious, even radical, commitment. They tend to be pale shadows of the dynamic, Spirit-filled world-changers the New Testament describes. The primary doers–those responsible for getting Christ’s work done–remain the salaried ministers. Many of the church’s members continue to be observers of ministry, perpetuating a platform-audience relationship.” (Joe Ellis, ibid., 112) Well said.

Tags: Granger, parishioner whining, pastors, pew-sitters, preachers, SOL, Truth Matters

Friends,

I’ll apologize at the outset for the offensive title to this blog post, but it is really the only way to say what I am thinking after reading Ingrid’s latest drive by display of ignorance. I am angry though about her most recent outburst against the Body of Christ. She was so willing to make a hit against someone that I don’t believe for a minute that she even listened to the sermon she criticizes. I am simply astounded that she has criticized this sermon delivered at the Grace Church. Here’s part of what Ingrid wrote:

Please take just ten minutes to watch the video. After watching it, you can vote on the website as to whether Christ was glorified or something else. You can forward past the out of tune guitar and singer, and just listen to what the pastor has to say.

We have been so far removed from Christ-centered worship, most evangelicals wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it. Worse still, because of a lack of biblical knowledge, the Scriptural metaphors and references within this hymn wouldn’t have any meaning to most reared at a circus church. We are generations deep now in biblical illiteracy, and that’s why the church and professing believers are in the condition they are.

See also the comments at Truth Matters where even more ignorance is on display. Here’s what the author there says:

When you have a spare 10 minutes, please go to the video link below. Before you get to the senior pastor’s introduction you will have to listen to the music director sing and then an associate pastor speak for about 2 minutes, then watch the Pastor’s introduction. The whole thing is very painful to watch. [You can also vote in their ridiculous poll which, predictably, favors a negative reaction. In fact, I had the only positive vote out of 33 or so.]

I suspect the reason why neither Ingrid nor the author of Truth Matters got it, and why they found the whole thing ‘painful’ is because they only watched 10 minutes of it, if they watched it at all.Well, just so you know, I watched the entire clip and I can say without reservation that this sermon was profoundly biblical in every aspect. I’ll only add a few caveats. First, he did look ridiculous in the Superman costume. But I suspect that he was playing the doppleganger by dressing in such an ironic way. Second, his outline was a bit difficult to follow, but he evidently provided outlines for the congregation. Third, he dealt with the Scripture from front to back. Fourth, aggghhh…he had people stand when he read the Word of God in order to, are you ready for this, ‘honor the Word of God.’ What a heretic!!!* (*Sarcastic)

Please someone tell me: What was painful about what he said? What was unbiblical about it? What did not glorify God? Mrs Schlueter, with all due respect here, did you even listen to what he preached? I am simply floored that they are bent about this message. The main part of the message, the overarching point was this: We are useless to God if we don’t forgive. How is that unbiblical? How is that painful? I’ll conclude by noting the main outline which follows this question: How can we be Biblical Supermen and Superwomen. Then I’ll note just a few bullet points that I picked up.

How can We be Biblical Supermen?

• The Biblical Superman puts his faith in the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Put your faith in Jesus.
• The Biblical Superman is committed to the local church in prayer, worship, teaching, fellowship, and accountability (and a few others)
• The Biblical Superman is active in serving Christ, using his gifts and talents.
• The Biblical Superman is always looking for divine appointments (This was really a brilliant point)
• The Biblical Superman is bold enough to share Jesus with others.
• The Biblical Superman takes responsibility for his actions.
• The Biblical Superman chooses to forgive.

Can someone point out to me, because after 13 years of preaching I guess I have missed the point, but can someone point out to me at what point this outline fails to honor God? Can someone point out to me how this is ‘painful’? This is one of the most biblically derived, expository outlines I have seen in a long, long time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this outline or the delivery or his exegesis or his orthodoxy. He argues for Pauline authorship, he tells us the historical circumstances that prompted the writing, he argues, first, that it is faith in the Work of Christ that makes the letter to Philemon possible in the first place.

I’m offering a challenge right now to the author of Truth Matters and the author of Slice: Point out one aspect of that sermon that was unorthodox or unbiblical. He dealt with the text from front to back. Offer one example of his failure and I will stop writing here. You cannot do it.

Now some bullet points in conclusion (these are a few things I picked up and wrote down, there was much more!):

• If you are harboring bitterness, God cannot use you.
• God sets up divine appointments.
• Philemon=loving
• Onesimus=useful
• Real biblical supermen choose to forgive.
• The grace of God makes us brand new
• Repent.
• Put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Man is never more like God than when he chooses to forgive.
• The news of the Gospel is that God forgives sins no matter how ugly they are.
• We are NOT supermen.
• Paul is asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus
• Sometimes when people hurt us it is part of God’s plan for spiritual renewal (ie. salvation)
• Forgiveness always refreshes the body of Christ.

The church sang. They prayed. The stood when the Word was read–and to be sure, they only read, for the purposes of the sermon, three verses! (Even though he read nearly half the book in the context of the message.) They talked of forgiveness and grace and repentance and Scripture and love. I counted the word ‘grace’ at least six times on the website where I watched the video. Just so you know, I am writing this defense of the preacher who preached that sermon because I know he wouldn’t do so himself. What I fear is that some lost person will happen along Slice or TM and be turned off to the sermon without giving it a chance. But I’ll say this: If I was lost and heard that sermon I would be convicted that Jesus is Lord. I am not lost and I am convicted of the Lordship of Christ after hearing that sermon. What a blessing.

Ingrid: Give the sermon more than ten minutes. TM: Give the sermon more than ten minutes. Get through the pain of being confronted with the command from Scripture to forgive and listen to what the preacher has to say. You have both missed it entirely! Oh my God, it is so sad, so pathetic that these two blogs have run down this preacher, Christ’s body, this sermon for no reason whatsoever. Oh My God! I am convinced, and becoming more so with every blog post I read at SOL, that there is something seriously, seriously wrong with their point of view.

Ingrid wrote:

We have been so far removed from Christ-centered worship, most evangelicals wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it. Worse still, because of a lack of biblical knowledge, the Scriptural metaphors and references within this hymn wouldn’t have any meaning to most reared at a circus church. We are generations deep now in biblical illiteracy, and that’s why the church and professing believers are in the condition they are.

The preacher spent nearly a third of the sermon (at least a third, maybe more) explaining and re-explaining the history and background and text of the book to Philemon. He did his part to eliminate biblical illiteracy and he is criticized and it is said that the sermon and worship ‘did not honor God’?!?!?!?!?!? My guess is that the people at Grace Church are not among the biblically illiterate. I suspect this is a church that is very good condition–especially if their preacher preaches like this every single week.

Wow. I think it is time to put SOL and TM into the heap of irrelevance. They ought to be ashamed for attacking that message, that preacher, that church in such a way. Shame on you, SOL!! And shame on you, TM!! You have no ground to stand on in your criticism of this man or his message. And I think I know of what I speak since I too preach every single week. I won’t dress like superman, but who cares if I did? The point is that this man delivered an orthodox, theologically sound, expository sermon. I don’t care what he was dressed like on the outside. He was wearing Christ on the inside!!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Tags: Grace Church, Philemon, Slice of Laodicea, Truth Matters, Worship