Eric Offstage

Interesting Trends in Christianity - Brand Loyalty & Celebrity Pastors

This is just my observation, and is not based on anything scientific.  People used to be incredibly loyal to their denominations.  They used to say, "I'm Baptist, or Lutheran, or Presbyterian, or Catholic." 

Then around the 1980's people stopped connecting with these labels or brand names in Christianity.  Instead of a label people just began to call themselves Christian or Christ-followers, and this was good.  It showed the world we were more concerned with being united in Christ than separated by the little insignificant things.  

But I think it is starting to change and move again.  Once again people are starting to take sides and throw verbal hand grenades at one another.  This time it is not over denominational loyalty but over Pastoral Loyalty.  

People have started to say things like:  "I follow Pastor Steven Furtick, or Mark Driscoll or Perry Noble or Bil Cornelius or Ed Young, Jr. or Eric Dykstra."

And something about those kind of statements really bother me. 

*****Now before I explain why, let me say I LOVE and RESPECT and HONOR all the other men I just mentioned.  They have taught me well and mentored me and helped me become a better pastor and man of God.  I shouldn't even be included with these guys.  They are way better men than me.

BUT as a Christian, there is only ONE GUY we follow, and HIS NAME IS JESUS! 

Seriously, it disturbs me how many people follow celebrity pastors and what they say rather than Jesus and what He says.  I AM INCLUDING MYSELF IN THIS.  I am just a jacked up HUMAN BEING like everyone else.  There are mornings I can barely tell my head from a hole in the ground. 

Remember something Christians.  You don't follow ME or any other Pastor - YOU FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST! 

Maybe instead of picking teams and following people, you should just FOLLOW JESUS - AND DO WHAT HE SAYS!

I Cor. 1:12-13 -- Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.”  Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!

WE WERE NOT BAPTIZED IN THE NAME OF ANYONE BUT JESUS CHRIST.  ONLY JESUS DIED FOR YOU!  So love Jesus, worship Jesus, sacrifice for Jesus, give your all for Jesus.  This is what it means to be Christian.  This is where BRAND LOYALTY needs to be. 

Later on in I Cor. 1:30-31 Paul says, God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.  Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord."

Notice:

• YOU WERE UNITED IN CHRIST
• CHRIST MADE YOU RIGHT WITH GOD
• CHRIST MADE YOU PURE AND HOLY
• CHRIST FREED US FROM SIN

So if you boast, BOAST ONLY IN JESUS.  If you follow someone, how about you make it JESUS.  All other leaders are flawed, faulty, and sometimes foolish.  Only Jesus is perfect and wise and good. 

It is always, ONLY about JESUS! This is the heartbeat of the Crossing Church and the heartbeat of my life.  We respect and honor our pastors and churches, but WE WORSHIP, LOVE, SACRIFICE and DIE FOR THE GLORY OF CHRIST ALONE! 

Prune Juice is Good for the Body of Christ

No one likes to drink prune juice.  It tastes awful and is super disgusting, BUT (there is a big BUTT here and I cannot lie) prune juice does keep you healthy. Prune juice purges from the body the things that would make you sick. 

Same is true in the body of Christ.  Every once in a while a church needs a good purging.  It needs to drink some prune juice and PRUNE OUT the people that could make the church sick.

Jesus said in John 15:1-2 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more."

God the Father is the gardener of the church.  His job is to PRUNE OUT the people that are faking it and consuming resources but not sacrificing or producing anything for the kingdom of heaven.  God as gardener cuts out the unhealthy spiritual fakers to make room for new growth:  Real, Jesus-loving, passionate disciples who make more disciples.  

So pastors HEAR THIS:  Stop worrying about people leaving your church!  Sometimes the best way to grow your church is through subtraction, not addition!  Sometimes you need to let God cut some people out of your church--or you need to be the instrument in God's hand to cut some people out.

God is not interested in a weekend crowd in your city; He is interested in a vibrant, committed, sacrificial ACTS 2 church dedicated to changing the world. 

Your city doesn't need a crowd on the weekend, either.  It needs a vibrant, committed, audacious, faith-filled church willing to do whatever it takes to rescue people from hell and bring them into a real, life- saving, committed relationship with CHRIST.

A church can only be healthy when there is consistant pruning! 

A church will only grow long term if you are willing to cut the complainers, the consumers and the complacent people loose.  You are not trying to just grow a crowd; you are trying to cultivate a healthy, vibrant, faith-filled CHURCH in your city. 

So, who do you need to prune out or pray out of your church so it will grow? 

What risks are you failing to take because you are afraid people will leave? 

Remember: Prune juice is good for the body.  Without prune juice, you will get all backed-up and toxic and gross. 

DRINK UP and get healthy! 

Church VS. Church

Sometimes people make the assumption that the reason why The Crossing Church is so aggressive and advertises so much, and does over the top music, and is so creative, is because we are trying to compete against other churches to get church people to come to ours. 

So I thought I would set the record straight.  We are not competing against any other church.  In fact we are not trying to reach people that attend church.  Why would I want to offer food to the already spiritually fed when I can offer food to the spiritually starving? 

The Crossing exists to reach people who are far from God and to help people who don't yet know Christ, or go to church, meet Christ and find hope and help at His church!  We don't advertise, do creative things, push to have great music and good teaching because we are trying to compete and have a better product than other churches in town. 

NO!  We do these things to be more interesting than a movie, the bar, the strip club, or getting stoned on Saturday night.  We do these things to be more valuable than a hangover, sleeping in, going shopping, or playing video games on Sunday mornings.  

We do these things not to compete against other churches but to compete against hell itself.  As long as people find more value in cheap entertainment or getting high than they do in Christ --HELL WINS. 

But if we can get people in the door, and show people the incredible, unbelievable value of Jesus and how his supernatural power can change their life --GOD WINS! 

This is not church vs church.  This is CHURCH vs HELL. And we are going to win this fight one weekend at a time. 

See you this weekend with a friend for Ineed2change!

Wussification Of God's church Post # 1

Over the next few weeks I am starting a new series of posts entitled:  THE WUSSIFICATION ofGod's Church.  This series of posts is born out of looking out at Christians in America and many times seeing anything but the strong insane risk takers of the Bible.  

If you look in the Bible, God followers were radicals; not wieners:  (Check out Hebrews 11)

• Noah spent 100 years building a boat unafraid of the criticism of the entire world.  (FEARLESS)
• Abraham moved his entire family to a new country by faith without even knowing where he was going.  (RADICAL FAITH)
• Abraham also was so radical he was willing to sacrifice his only son to God.  (CRAZY!)
• Moses confronted a powerful king to see his people freed from slavery.  (CONFRONTATION)
• Gideon went to war for freedom.  (the original William Wallace)
• Samson went totally nuts on bad guys with a jawbone of a donkey.  (even without any resources, he refused to quit.) 
• Teenage David killed a giant.  (Fearless)
• Elijah confronted an evil king and hundreds of false prophets.  (Confrontation)
• Esther risked her own life to save her people.  (Selfless risk for the good of others)
• The disciples were tortured and beaten for the name of Christ.  (Strength and honor)

The stories of Scripture are filled with Great RISK and Great PAIN and Great JOY.  You can't look at these men and women and say:  WUSS!

But on the other hand, many times that is a great way to label many American Christians. 

• We sacrifice for Christ if it's easy. 
• We serve Christ if we have the time.
• We give if we have some extra.
• We praise Christ as long as no one thinks we are weird. 
• We speak up for Christ if we think no one will make fun of us. 
• We run from conflict, we avoid risk, we choose the easy way, we wimp out and give in to sin, we complain about hardship, we keep our mouths shut about Jesus, we give little, we serve halfheartedly and we complain we don't experience the powerful, miraculous, life-changing Christ. 

Do you see a problem here?  Why don't we EXPERIENCE A POWERFUL MIRACULOUS LIFE CHANGING CHRIST?  Because we wussed out on the call of Christ.  JESUS ISN'T FOR WUSSIES!!

Jesus said: Matthew 10:34-39  "Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household! If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it. 

Jesus is saying you can't be a WUSS and follow me. You have to be all in. If you want to find your life and experience God for real, you have to stop being a WUSSY and FIND YOUR BALLS and get a fearless, radical, confrontational (at times) selfless, risk taking faith. And when you do that, when you serve and give and risk it all you encounter our powerful miraculous life changing Jesus.  YOU FIND YOUR LIFE!! 

Crossing, I confess I have not been radical or courageous enough.  It is time I raise the bar again in my own life.  I want to be included in the great band of brothers and sisters of Scripture as hero of faith, and not a wuss of faith.

How about you?  Is it time to raise the bar again?

Let us never be wusses for Christ, but let us be crazy and radical and experience the real Christ. 

Stuff That Bugs Me (Part # 3)

Nerd Christians. 

I confess this is what I used to be, and I had to fall on my knees and repent of my nerdiness many times in my life.

What I mean by "nerd Christians" is this: 
People who love to sit and argue about what the Bible means at the expense of doing what it says. 

For a huge part of my life as a Jesus follower I assumed the point of my faith was to know stuff.  So I filled my head with all kinds of information about the Bible.  I learned some Hebrew and Greek.  I studied and argued many of the different teachings on what the book of Revelation might mean.  I tried to determine if I was a Calvinist or an Arminian.  (Don't worry if you don't know what those things are.)  I argued all kinds of things with all kinds of other Nerd Christians about the nuances of some random Bible verse.  And I did this at the expense of people far from God. 

I pretty much ignored people outside my Christian bubble so that I could become spiritually smarter than everyone else, and have all the right answers about God and faith in front of my other nerd friends.     

I now realize I will never have all the right answers, and that my job is not to know everything and argue every little detail.  My job is to represent Christ well to a broken world and take the simple powerful message of the love of God to people who need it. 

(That is MUCH HARDER, by the way, than learning a new thing about a Bible verse.)

Now, please don't get me wrong here:
Knowledge is a good thing.  We should learn about our faith.  But the point of learning the Bible and understanding Scripture is to look more like Jesus when we are done. 

It is about transformation--not information.   

If you find yourself in arguments with church people over the Bible that lead to trying to "one up" the other person, or leave you with bitterness or anger, I would question whether that conversation was valuable at all. 

Look at the fruit of your discussions and ask yourself, "Are these conversations making me a better, more radically loving grace-filled person?  OR "Are these conversations making me pride-filled, argumentative and hostile?" 

1 Corinthians 8:1  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

See, love trumps knowledge every time.  I pray that I am a person who always keeps love and grace the focus of my life and never again fall into the trap of nerd Christian. 

Happy New Year!  Be a person of grace; not just a person of knowledge. 

 

    

Things that bug me (Part # 2)

Small-Minded Critical people
Now don't get me wrong.  Being critical is not always a bad thing.  We should be critical thinkers and analyze things to make sure that we are bringing honor to Jesus and actually reaching people. 

But the problem I have is that many times church people would rather to be critical of new ideas rather than actually have any.  It is interesting to me that the people who are the loudest critics of new programs or efforts or ideas in a church are usually (not always) the ones sitting on their butts doing the least amount of work.

When people immediately assume something is shallow or evil or Satanic because it is new, or different, that is small minded.  When people sit around and complain rather than try anything new, churches die.  No wonder most churches aren't reaching anyone.  You have to take risks and try new things if you want the message of Christ to be heard in our world.   

I am totally up for criticism as long is it is from people who are doing AS MUCH OR MORE THAT ME to reach people.  See I can respect those people, because they are working as hard as me or harder.  Their heart and soul is passionate about seeing God's lost kids get found, and I can learn from that kind of criticism. 

But honestly I could care less about criticism from people who do jack squat and then whine and criticize and complain about how shallow or evil or suspect The Crossing is. 

The Crossing is on a mission to THRILL people with an awesome God and MOVE seeking people one step closer to Jesus.  And we ignore criticism from people who aren't working as hard as us to do the same.   

   

Stuff that bugs me (Part # 1)

Lazy Church People. 
This I think truly sickens and saddens the heart of God.  See, the goal of the church is to invade the world with the truth love and hope of Jesus Christ.  That is our goal.  TO SEEK AND SAVE THE LOST!!  To do that takes more than singing hymns, going to bible study and praying.  IT ACTUALLY TAKES WORK!!  AND TONS OF IT!! 

If we truly believed that our job is to invade the world with Jesus, We would be doing anything short of sinning to help people know that God is for them and not against them. 

To many religious people are really just plain lazy.  They don't want to have to actually do the hard work of developing deep meaningful relationships with people who are far from God.  They don't want to actually try and make their faith make sense to people who don't understand.

They just want to feel good about themselves by reading the book of Ephesians one more time and  singing some church songs while the people around them go straight to hell. 

HOW INSANE IS THAT?!!