Dear Light House Trails:
First, can I thank you for the excellent maintenance of keeping your finger on the pulse of the New Age and emergent Christianity. This is a critical issue that has been of serious concern for me since the early 1990s.
I am quite amazed that the process that is occurring in the traditional churches I saw happening in the Pentecostal church back in the 1990s . Almost like a trial run.
I wish to make comment on “How To Find a Good Bible Believing Church” on page 15 of your Research Journal.
My personal experience in searching for a biblical church is one of deceit and deception.
After attending one church a number of times, I wrote (a congregational) explaining the danger of the existentialist message preached and the dangers associated with Rick Warren.
I lovingly hand bound the letter as a book made 4 other copies for the elders in the church.
Never even got a response. He has a regular spot on the Christian radio station in my local area. (A Christian radio station that plays more worldly music than Christian. They argue that non Christians will listen to it and happen to hear a Christian message and be saved. I reason the opposite, that short of good Christian input these days, a young Christian turns to a Christian radio station expecting to hear Christian music, even though that is a topic in itself, and come across worldly music only to fall in love with godless bands and seek further worldly music and be drawn away from the faith instead.) A Christian Radio station tempting Christians into ungodliness.
I wrote to another church I visited (Baptist) who claimed they were not into Rick Warren, only to hear the entire message as a complete Warrenesk theology, speaking about the new missiology, the influences that surrounded Warren. Even quoting his favourite scriptures. The only thing that was neglected in the message was Rick Warren’s name. It was only that I had previously done the research on Warren and the Purpose Driven Life in the previous letter mentioned, that I could hear Rick Warren speaking from the pulpit.
The songs were also concerning. They were singing new songs I have never heard before which were very troubling to my spirit as one of them was about the New World Order coming.
Ouch.
So my family and I returned to our other congregation _________________.
Again they sell Rick Warren’s book in the back, and I kept hearing more and more echoes of his influence. Some years before the New Minister, the church underwent 40 Days of Purpose, which I was not involved in.
It got to the point where I had to write a letter to the minister as well about a sermon an assistant minister in the church preached and how much of it was using Purpose Driven Philosophy and numerous “techniques” to recruit to their cause. Deception concealing non Christian sources by refraining from referencing them and letting the quote stand as truth when they were from Hindu’s.
I did get a decent response back explaining the minister was not fond of Rick Warren and were aware of the deceptions of mysticism are entering the church. That the minister’s sermon was discussed in Bible study groups and it was considered as seriously flawed and that the church only came short of publicly reprimanding him because he has only been preaching for a year. They admitted they had Warren’s book up the back but did not go to the extent of saying they would remove them.
Again it feels like the whole church environment is nothing but politics. Say what you need to to avoid difficulties and get to the next phase of change so to speak.
I think the advice given in “How To Find a Good Bible Church” was good but at the end of the day, if we do not understand the topic at hand we are prone to deception because we cannot trust anyone to admit anything. It is about getting people in the door these days, not the telling the truth.
In the Glorious name of Salvation
Shawn (not real name)
