Every time we have a campaign in our church to go through another book, each person in the small groups buys a book. If we cannot afford a book, someone else will buy it for us. Most of these campaigns are for the teaching impaired, and therefore, there has to be a DVD purchased for each small group. I guess tithes pay for this? There are often slick ad campaigns before a series in which the entire church will follow the same theme. There might be postcards mailed out, which can be mailed for free but still cost money to purchase from the organization selling them. There might be posters in church ahead of time, again, there is a fee for such things. Besides our church wide campaigns and books, there are many small group study books on just about any topic. Some again are “DVD” driven. At different times during the year our church has speakers who promote their books or music CD’s. These speakers, I’m learning through my searches, are tied in with contemplative prayer or other topics of concern to me. They do not speak for free, they are paid with funds taken from our offering. And then there are the conferences, training sessions, and seminars. Nothing is free, and if you get a “scholarship” that money comes from the general fund. Oh, and the missions trips! That’s right, how could those be linked in any way to an agenda for emergent church? Well, in my reading and searching I found various links to a local emergent church and youth program/camp. This camp I’ll call YF has several missions destination sites they are in charge of. So, we often pay to send kids on missions trips through YF, and also send kids to the local YF camps around our area. This YF camp is run by a man who is on the board and I think, from what I have read, helps pastor the local emergent church. (This church has Brian McLaren speak, and is currently having Pagit and his roadshow come to their “church basement”). So, our church funds all these missions trips, our youth goes by droves to several locations all affiliated with YF, we also have kids going to YF camps. Our money goes to this emergent church through YF. Essentially, many books we buy, speakers we fund, trips that are taken, and even our children’s curriculums are supporting emerging trendy churches or seeker friendly large megachurches, or publishing houses that are “in the back pocket” of these emergent/seeker friendly church leaders (or is it the leaders are in the back pocket of the publishing companies, not sure). All this money, and we church members are paying it. If you don’t like the direction of YOUR pupose driven, willow creek small grouping, emergent contemplative praying, Harp and Bowling, transformational, missional, spritual formating church, you need to quit buying the books, paying for the conferences, and you need to pay your tithe to God elsewhere. Of course, you can always do what they are waiting for the challengers to do anyway and speak with your feet!
Read Full Post »
I am a C...I am a CH...I am a CHRISTIAN 