Every year around this time, Lighthouse Trails presents its Year in Review. Over the next few days, we will be posting our top stories from different categories from 2017. This is an opportunity to read stories you may have missed and also to get a wide-lens glance at important things happening in the church and … [Read more…]
Dear Lighthouse Trails: A while back I alerted you to the fact that Awana was joining forces with Josh Griffin who was the youth pastor for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. Josh Griffin is also associated with Youth Specialties, an organization that promotes occult [contemplative] practices to youth. Unfortunately, Awana is continuing down the emergent road. … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: Today, the church is “reaping the fruit” of nearly 40 years of Spiritual Formation influence (since Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline was released in 1978). Lighthouse Trails has warned its readers on a number of occasions about the direction AWANA children’s club is going with regard to contemplative spirituality (i.e., Spiritual Formation) (see links … [Read more…]
See also Part 1 Year in Review | See also Part 2 Year in Review | See also Part 3 Year in Review (Listed in order of date posted) 1/A History of AWANA’s Contemplative Track Record and the Implications of Their New CEO On March 9th of this year, a press release came out announcing … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: Lighthouse Trails has had concerns about the direction Awana may be heading for a number of years. This letter (of which we substantiated the contents -see added links) below gives further reason to continue those concerns. Below this letter, you can see links to a few articles we have previously posted about Awana. … [Read more…]
By Berit Kjos (author of How to Protect Your Child From the New Age and Spiritual Deception) The Spiritual Formation movement is widely promoted at colleges and seminaries as the latest and the greatest way to become a spiritual leader. It teaches people that this is how they can become more intimate with God and … [Read more…]
Update April 2012: Because Awana’s book, Perspectives on Children’s Spiritual Formation is circulating the market, and because we hear from Lighthouse Trails readers who ask about Awana and their promotion of Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative), we are reposting this information about this book. Prior to posting this revisit article, we contacted Broadman and Holman, the … [Read more…]
Three years ago, we wrote an article titled Brian McLaren’s Hope for the Future – The Minds of Your Grandchildren. In that article, we stated: [I]n [Brian] McLaren’s book [Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices] . . . he gives a detailed analysis of how the emerging church is God’s answer to a … [Read more…]
If you are planning on sending your child(ren) to kid’s summer camp or Vacation Bible School this summer, please use caution and discernment. Find out if the program you are looking at is going to be including a spiritual formation program and if so, you should avoid such programs. Also be careful about receiving advice … [Read more…]
For seven years, Lighthouse Trails has been writing about and reporting on contemplative spirituality and how it has entered the Christian church. When we first began, with the publication of A Time of Departing, and then with ongoing research, we soon became aware that contemplative was much more widespread than what we had initially … [Read more…]
Nearly two years ago, Lighthouse Trails issued its first report that the Christian children’s club, Awana, may be heading toward contemplative. Since then, further evidence has come to the surface, and yet Awana leaders continue to deny that this is happening. Today, we received another email backing up their insistence that nothing is amiss. Thus, … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: Because Awanas now promotes contemplative spirituality, we are providing the comments below, which are from “Just the Book” wesite regarding the recent Awana Summit conference. If your children are involved with Awanas, we hope you will encourage the leaders of Awana to steer clear of contemplative spirituality and the emerging church. Parental Alert: … [Read more…]
This past spring NavPress released My First Message by Eugene Peterson. The book is meant to be a child’s first Bible. A product description of the book suggests that the contemplative practice called lectio divina is being utilized: It states: My First Message: A Devotional Bible for Kids uses the time-tested practice of lectio … [Read more…]
In February of 2006, Lighthouse Trails issued a report titled “Awana: Are They Heading Toward Contemplative/Emergent?” The concerns were over the organization’s connection with Willow Creek, with Awana’s interest in Spiritual Formation and with a recommended ministry list that included a number of contemplative/emergent organizations, including Youth Specialties.1 A year and a half later, Awana … [Read more…]
In February, we contacted Awana Club with concerns about their affiliation with and promotion of contemplative organizations such as Willow Creek, Youth Specialties, and Group Publishing. We later learned that there would be no changes made by Awana regarding these organizations. (You may read about this situation in our February news release.) Today, we have … [Read more…]
