by Sandy Simpson
Deception in the Church Ministries
The Emerging Church (EC) and New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) have many things in common, which has been proved again and again by the cooperation and even mentorship across the lines of EC and NAR. These types of “Ladies Home Journal” surveys that are supposed to teach you something about yourself are used by both groups and very much from the same model set forth by modern psychology. When dealing with worldly issues and even those of emotional and mental development, surveys can sometimes be of some help, though more often they are not really much help at all. This is because surveys do not really help people spiritually. The Bible provides the highest and best help for all areas of life. But this reliance on human therapeutic methodology is very evident in both the spiritual formation materials at Trevecca and in materials flowing forth from the C. Peter Wagner NAR. For the purposes of anonymity I am not going to name names but I have firsthand knowledge of the C. Peter Wagner survey put out under the name of “Finding Your Spiritual Gifts” by C. Peter Wagner. This survey was used in a recent ACSI teacher’s conference. Teachers signed up for extra curricular classes which would provide them credit in their teaching credentials. The name of the class where this survey was presented was called “Creativity: It All Begins With An Idea”. The teachers, thinking they would be presented with ideas on creativity in the classroom, ended up having to take the above survey if they wanted to get credit for the course. What the survey had to do with the subject is beyond me. To me it was very disingenuous to ride in on one horse, switch horses in the middle of the stream, and end up leaving people drowning in Third Wave/Latter Rain false ideas. Be that as it may, this was only a small part of the problem.
The first question I had was this: how can a survey help you “find your spiritual gifts”? The answer: it cannot. All the questions were framed in such as way that they were almost all focused on self. Before we get too far into this analysis I need to give you the correct Biblical way to find your spiritual gifts so you can compare the positive picture with the negative. Click here to continue.